Macklemore was dropped from the remaining eight dates of Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour after using a MetLife Stadium show in East Rutherford, New Jersey, to urge a free Palestine, accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza, wear a keffiyeh, and put matching images on the jumbotron.

In 2014 in Seattle he took the stage in a floppy black wig, fake beard and oversized nose and was photographed giving a Nazi salute in that costume. He later said the outfit was only a disguise for a short private-event surprise, apologized, and insisted he never meant to portray a Jewish person or insult any culture.

His 2024 song Hind’s Hall attacks police and praises Students for Justice for Palestine for a Columbia University campus takeover that involved intimidation and property damage. On 18 September 2009 he posted that Bush knocked down the towers on 9/11.