Bill Maher revives Macklemore’s 2014 nose costume amid Sheeran fallout

Bill Maher used Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time” to reopen an old wound for Macklemore, invoking the rapper’s 2014 costume controversy days after he was dropped from Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour over his pro-Palestinian remarks onstage.

During his opening monologue, Mr. Maher, talking about rising consumer prices, joked, “Everybody’s paying more. Macklemore today had to pay an arm and a leg for a giant fake prosthetic Jew nose” — a reference to a 2014 appearance at Seattle’s EMP Museum, where the rapper performed in a dark wig, beard and prosthetic nose that critics likened to an antisemitic caricature, as TheWrap reported. Macklemore denied at the time that he intended any stereotype, saying the costume was thrown together so he could move through the event unnoticed, and he apologized afterward, writing that he had not foreseen how it would be perceived. Mr. Maher went on to accuse the rapper of “repeating lies about how Gaza is a genocide.”

Macklemore has stood by his Israel-Gaza commentary despite the professional fallout. The rapper was pulled from Mr. Sheeran’s remaining U.S. tour dates this month after calling for a “Free Palestine” while opening for the British singer at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Multiple venues on the remaining tour dates objected to Macklemore’s presence on the bill, and concert promoter Messina Touring Group ultimately made the call to remove him rather than cancel the tour outright, the promoter told Rolling Stone. Macklemore has said Mr. Sheeran told him New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft pressured stadium operators, including Gillette Stadium, to bar him from performing; Mr. Sheeran has said the removal was the promoter’s decision, not his own.

Macklemore later announced he would donate the entire $1 million in net earnings he made from the tour to organizations aiding Palestinians and publicly challenged Mr. Kraft to match the gift.

“I didn’t need 10 shows from Ed. I needed two,” he wrote of the brief run he was allowed to complete, in a lengthy Instagram post. Mr. Kraft responded that he had already committed $2 million toward Gaza humanitarian relief, matching a pledge Mr. Sheeran made earlier that same day — before Macklemore’s challenge, not in response to it.

Friday’s jab was not Mr. Maher’s first swing at the rapper. During the previous week’s episode, timed to Rosh Hashanah, the comedian devoted a “New Rule” segment to disputing the genocide label outright, calling it an “easily provable lie” and arguing that such rhetoric from left-wing celebrities is fueling a global rise in antisemitism.