Singer Ed Sheeran is facing the biggest controversy of his career after a storm over a decision to drop support act Macklemore from his US stadium tour following the rapper’s on-stage pro-Palestinian comments.

Sheeran is one of the most successful songwriters of all time. He has sold more than 120 million records and spent more than 1,000 weeks on the US album charts.

Part of his appeal - apart from those insidiously catchy songs - is his everyman persona. He looks and dresses like a fan on the train home from Glastonbury, rather than one of the festival’s headliners.

He has carefully cultivated a non-threatening, everyone welcome public image. In 2014, he donated his entire wardrobe to charity shops. The same year, he adopted a one-month-old kitten, saving it from euthanasia, and named it Graham. Today, he runs a charity providing music lessons to under-18s in his home county of Suffolk.

He tries to stay out of politics - usually only getting involved to campaign for issues like copyright protection and ticket touting, or to raise concerns over the impact of Brexit on touring musicians.

But like most artists, he leans left. In 2017, he said he supported then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, despite not endorsing him at the stump.

“People thought that, because I didn’t put myself behind him, I wasn’t a Corbyn supporter,” Sheeran told the Sunday Times. “If you knew me as a person, and listened to my music, you would be able to make a pretty educated guess that he would be the kind of person I really dig.”

When it comes to non-musical issues, Sheeran prefers to remain circumspect. His reasoning, he says, is that music should unite. He views his concerts as a “place of safety and sanctuary” built on shared humanity.

This week, that argument has come crumbling down - creating a crisis for his reputation and career.

By now, you probably know the story. Macklemore was picked as opening act on Sheeran’s US tour, and on the first night made a speech saying “Free Palestine” and showing images of the destruction in Gaza.

The following night, he referred to the death toll as a genocide, a claim that Israel rejects.

He faced condemnation, with the organisation StopAntisemitism accusing Macklemore of “ambushing” the audience. Stadium owners, apparently led by the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots, Robert Kraft, put pressure on Sheeran and his promoters to drop him from the tour.

After a week of backroom discussions, they got their way.

On Tuesday, Sheeran issued a statement saying the decision was made by the promoters, not by him.

He said he had tried to build bridges between the parties, to no avail. And he said he was “not complicit”, arguing that his decision to remain out of the Middle East debate in public wasn’t proof he “didn’t care”.

“I am appalled by the conflict between Israel and Palestine,” he wrote. “The suffering and pain caused on both sides is a human tragedy. There are too many wars across the world causing immeasurable pain, none of which should be tolerated.”

He continued: “There is a reason I do not use my professional platform for politics - my audience includes young people, often children, of all backgrounds.”

The statement landed with a thud.

If Sheeran is so concerned about children, critics said, how come he hasn’t mentioned the thousands of children killed in Gaza?

Others pointed out that his abstention from politics was not absolute. He wore a “justice for Grenfell” T-shirt at Wembley Stadium in 2018 after the Grenfell Tower fire, played the Concert For Ukraine in 2022, and recorded a protest song about the Ukraine war with U2 earlier this year.

Questions were also raised about his relationship with Kraft. Sheeran sang at the businessman’s wedding in 2022, and in a subsequent interview called him “super sweet”.

Music journalist Jeffrey Ingold said Sheeran’s apparent acceptance of the decision to drop Macklemore seemed like “cowardice”.

“He is one of the biggest musicians in the world,” Ingold told BBC Radio 5 Live. "He has power and he has leverage. And he has essentially washed his hands and said, this is not my responsibility.

“He had options, right? He could have said to the promoters and the owners of the venues, including Robert Kraft, ‘You know what, we’re not going to do the shows there. If you’re not going to let us all perform, we’re not going to do it’. He could have found alternate venues.”

Hours after Sheeran’s statement landed, his tour went into crisis. All three support acts for the remaining shows - Finneas, Aaron Rowe and Lukas Graham - pulled out, voicing support for Macklemore. Beoga - who back Sheeran to play songs like Galway Girl and Nancy Mulligan - also quit.

Many of them said Macklemore’s axing, at the hands of a group of billionaire venue owners, represented a chilling effect on free speech.

Others from music and beyond have spoken out. Pop star Pink, who is Jewish, reposted an anti-Macklemore meme and then her own message, explaining why she was critical of the rapper’s comments.

Suddenly, against his will, Sheeran has become the centre of a political storm over one of the world’s most divisive issues.

Could Sheeran have handled it better when the controversy blew up? Absolutely.

In his statement, he said he wanted to continue the tour, to avoid letting down fans and the crew who rely on his concerts to make a living.

If he had threatened to pull the plug on the shows, he could have framed it as a protest for free speech - although that would still inevitably have been interpreted as an endorsement of Macklemore’s statements.

So, Sheeran stumbled into a Catch 22 situation. He was damned either way.

His nice guy image has taken a huge dent, and the “not my responsibility” tone of his statement certainly didn’t help.

Ingold says: "I think it will change the way people look at him and see him from this point forward.

“He has said he’s not complicit, but he actually is incredibly complicit in what’s happening [on this tour].”

Jem Aswad, executive music editor of Variety, says the episode shows “you can’t be neutral on this issue” - but points out that most people don’t go to Sheeran’s concerts to be reminded of issues like Gaza, “they go there to stop thinking about it and be entertained”.

Aswad doubts that this controversy will cause his career major damage, saying he doesn’t think most of the criticism “is necessarily coming from Ed Sheeran’s fans”.

“It’s coming from people who object to the way that he’s behaved in this [situation], and I’m not sure a lot of those people are really Ed Sheeran’s fans.”

We’ll find out when Sheeran plays his next show in Philadelphia on Saturday. A vocal contingent might make their thoughts known, but many will just be turning up to enjoy the music.

The loss of his backing band isn’t the disaster it may seem, either.

On previous tours, Sheeran has been the only artist on stage - accompanying himself on a loop pedal instead of relying on other musicians.

But once this run of concerts ends in Mexico this December, his next steps will have to be carefully planned.

Perhaps, in an age of febrile discontent, staying above the fray is simply impossible.