Has it really come to this? One of the world’s biggest stars sits cross-legged on stage and sobs his eyes out.
The cancel-culture mob demanded their pound of flesh and Ed Sheeran duly delivered.
For many, his tears will be too little, too late. They’ve made up their minds. In their eyes, Ed remains a spineless coward for failing to stand by his support act Macklemore.
But surely their anger is misplaced. We don’t know how hard Ed pushed back against billionaire Robert Kraft’s decision to ban Macklemore from performing at his stadium, or against threats of similar action elsewhere.
What we do know is that tens of thousands of ordinary fans had paid good, hard-earned money to see Ed.
And he wasn’t blind to the fact that, when artists, promoters and powerful businessmen go to war, it is so often those fans who lose out. Walking away would have been easy.
Instead, amid perhaps the toughest moment of his career, Ed tried to navigate an extraordinarily complex political storm while honouring his commitment to them.
Yes, he appeared to read from a script at first. Frankly, with his career at stake, who wouldn’t choose their words carefully? It was later, when he let his guard down and spoke unscripted, that the emotion really came.
Ed himself admits he’d made mistakes over the last week. His initial, defensive statement was a PR disaster. But at what point is enough, enough?
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: mirror.co.uk
