YouTube Kids icon matches Macklemore’s $1M Palestine aid donation after he was dropped from Ed Sheeran’s tour

The popular kids’ YouTube star Rachel Accurso, also known as Ms Rachel, announced that she would match rapper Macklemore’s $1 million pledge for Gaza aid after he was fired from Ed Sheeran’s North American tour.

The donations go straight to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. Ms Rachel expressed deep grief over the ongoing war on Instagram, noting that “over 20,000 precious Palestinian children have been killed, and children continue to be killed every day.”

The educator, who has over 21 million subscribers on YouTube, urged other celebrities to step up. She wrote that “we have a moral obligation to use our privilege and platforms to protect children and human rights,” encouraging wealthy stars to act.

Fired from tour after expressing pro-Palestinian views

Ms Rachel’s donation comes after a major controversy surrounding the artist Macklemore, who was dropped as the warm-up act for Ed Sheeran’s stadium tour in the US. Venue officials, spearheaded by Jewish-American billionaire Robert Kraft, removed him after a pro-Palestinian speech at MetLife Stadium earlier this month.

According to the Guardian, Macklemore told the crowd: “Free Palestine! I want those words to be loud and clear, so that people all the way in Gaza to the occupied West Bank know that we have not forgotten about them,” drawing criticism from Israel-aligned groups.

After consecutive nights with the same speech from the Seattle rapper, several of the owners of the stadiums across America, in a move instigated by Robert Kraft, who owns Gillette Stadium in New England, gave Ed Sheeran an ultimatum: Drop Macklemore from your tour or face cancellation. Sheeran ultimately chose the first option.

Following his removal, Macklemore promised to donate all his tour earnings to Palestinian relief causes.

Solidarity behind Macklemore

Defending his silence, Sheeran wrote on Instagram: “I have my personal views on this devastating conflict. Just because I choose not to speak publicly, it doesn’t mean I don’t have them, and it doesn’t mean I don’t care. Nor does it mean I don’t support causes in my own, personal way.”

This weekend, Ed Sheeran resumed The Loop Tour, which was supposed to be a tour in support of his eighth studio album Play. However, much of the night was about the aftermath of the controversies. Sheeran addressed those by reading a speech from a teleprompter.

“I don’t want to disappoint fans, and I’ve never wanted to be an activist musician, but this has put me in the middle of an important and passionate argument about freedom of speech and the most complex political issue on the planet,” Ed Sheeran told the crowd, according to Rolling Stone.

Meanwhile, it appears that many artists are siding with Macklemore. Four other opening acts on the Play tour, including singer Finneas and Danish group Lukas Graham, quit the tour citing a need for free speech and a “Free Palestine.”

This article is made and published by Daniel Wolfram, who may have used AI in the preparation