Pink: ‘I was born a Jew. I’ve never hidden it

It has been a week of noise, backlash and thousands of angry comments regarding Macklemore’s set at Ed Sheeran’s concert in the US. But when Pink finally broke her silence on Friday, she did it in the most personal way possible. She was not a pop star playing politics. She was a Jew, and a Jewish mother, who was scared.

The three-time Grammy winner published a statement of more than 1000 words on Instagram, addressing the firestorm that erupted after she shared a post criticising rapper Macklemore’s politically charged opening set.

The controversy began on September 4 when Macklemore took to the stage at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Wearing a keffiyeh, the rapper performed his 2024 protest song Hind’s Hall as images from the war in Gaza played on screens behind him. He told the crowd that one of the main reasons he joined the tour was so he could stand in stadiums and say “Free Palestine”.

Some concertgoers cheered, while others walked out, and within hours, the backlash was in full swing.

Pink, born Alecia Moore, reshared an Instagram story from Jewish advocacy group StopAntisemitism that accused Macklemore of pushing “anti-Israel propaganda” and called for apologies and refunds. She did not add her own words, and many followers attributed the entire message to her. What followed was a wave of personal attacks, calls to boycott her music, and fans declaring they were done with her.

For a few days, the singer responded by using sarcastic memes, which for those who know Pink, know that it’s very on brand. But by Erev Rosh Hashanah on Friday, she was ready to say it in her own words.

“I’ve been quiet in my own words for a week, which you know isn’t like me. So here they are,” she wrote.

Pink acknowledged that the repost used language she would not have chosen.

“A repost isn’t a statement, and a meme isn’t a spine,” she wrote. “But I’d rather be disagreed with for what I actually said than hated for what anybody else wrote.”

Then came the heart of it.

“I was born a Jew. I didn’t pick it, and I’ve never hidden it,” she wrote. “And this week a whole lot of people decided what I believe without asking me, without checking a single thing I’ve ever said or done, because a repost and the word ‘Jew’ were apparently enough to fill in the rest.”

Pink stressed that she does not speak for Israel or any government and reiterated the position she has held since October 2023. That Hamas is a terrorist organisation, that Palestinians deserve a future that honours their humanity, and that protecting innocent life comes first.

She pointed to her decade as a UNICEF ambassador, saying she had personally visited children born into conflict zones and grieved for children on both sides.

But she made clear that what drove her to speak up was not the phrase “Free Palestine”. It was what happened at the concert itself and what Macklemore has said in the past and said following.

Pink recalled how, at the 2014 Grammys, she cheered when Macklemore performed Same Love as couples were married onstage. Four months later, Macklemore appeared in a costume that many Jewish people interpreted as an antisemitic caricature, complete with a prosthetic hooked nose and black beard. He apologised, and Pink said she let it go.

But last weekend’s stadium performance, she said, brought those memories flooding back. The combination of a packed venue, war imagery on screen, and Macklemore telling Jewish concertgoers that his message was not about them crossed a line for her.

“You don’t get to decide that for us,” she wrote.

Pink was emphatic that she was not calling for anyone to be silenced or fired.

“I have never asked for another artist to be silenced and I’m not asking now. I don’t need anyone fired, and I don’t need a refund,” she wrote. “What I need is to be able to say, as a Jewish mom, ‘that scared me, and it scared people I love,’ without being told our fear is just propaganda.”

She distilled her argument down to one line. 

“You don’t have to agree with one thing Israel’s government does to not want the Jewish family two rows down from you to be scared or targeted at a concert. That’s the only thing I’m asking anybody for.”

Pink also addressed the broader shift in rhetoric she had witnessed in her own comments, with the word “Zionist” being used as a slur by people who, she said, had never asked what she actually believed.

“I think somebody handed them a story where the Jew who won’t apologise for existing must be the villain, and they’ve been putting words in my mouth ever since,” she wrote.

She said she could handle being cast as the villain. But she would not stay quiet about it, and she would not teach her children to, either.

“And now I’m standing up for my own people, and I thought I knew going in how lonely that would be,” she wrote. “And it’s lonelier than that. But I’m doing it anyway.”

To her fans who were furious with her, Pink offered a simple message. 

“You don’t have to agree with me. You never did. That’s been our unspoken agreement for twenty-five years, and it still stands, and so do I.”

And to everyone else caught in the crossfire, she widened the lens. 

“To the ones who are frightened this week, Jewish or Muslim or Palestinian or Israeli or just tired of all of it: I see you.”

Macklemore has stood by his remarks, reposting concert footage and telling audiences at a subsequent show that “criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you”, addressing Jewish concertgoers directly. 

Sheeran has not publicly commented.

Among the thousands of responses to Pink’s post was a message of solidarity from Israeli actress Gal Gadot, who told the singer she was not alone and wished her a new year filled with “love and light”. The comment drew more than 8000 likes within hours and at the time of writing was above 20,000. 

Pink signed off with a nod to the Jewish new year. 

“Now I’m going to go make dinner for my kids, light the candles, dip some apples in honey, pour a glass of wine and be full of gratitude,” she wrote. “That’s my tradition. It also happens to be a Jewish one. Shana tova.”