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Melissa Barrera has compared the reaction to Macklemore being dropped from Ed Sheeran’s tour for taking a pro-Palestinian stance to her own firing from Scream 7.
“It made me emotional, you know,” Barrera, 36, told The Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday, September 16. “I didn’t get that when it happened to me. I didn’t have any of that happen. It was too soon. People were too scared. But it’s good to see that almost three years later, at least things have changed.”
Barrera was reportedly dismissed from the cast from Scream 7 in 2023 for taking a vocal pro-Palestinian stance in the wake of the October 7 terror attacks and subsequent Israeli military operation in Gaza. (She “condemn[ed] anti-semitism and Islamophobia” in a statement issued at the time.)
Scream’s production company Spyglass denied that Barrera’s support for Palestinians was behind her departure from the franchise, though a statement from the organization said it had “zero tolerance for antisemitism or the incitement of hate in any form, including false references to genocide, ethnic cleansing, Holocaust distortion or anything that flagrantly crosses the line into hate speech.”
In May, Barrera was asked whether she’d compare costars who ultimately returned for Scream 7 to scabs crossing a picket line during a strike.
“Oh, one hundred percent,” she told Variety. “I think they all are. And they have to live with that.”
Scream 7 star Matthew Lillard said this month that he regretted taking part in the film, adding that Barrera is “on the right side of history” for her humanitarian stance.
As for Macklemore’s situation, the “Same Love” rapper, 43, was kicked off Sheeran’s Loop Tour as a support act after shouting “Free Palestine” at two concerts at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey earlier this month.
Sheeran, 35, allegedly received pressure from promoters and venue owners — including Gillette Stadium owner Robert Kraft — that they would not move forward with Loop Tour shows unless Macklemore was dropped. The “Shape of You” singer’s management officially dismissed Macklemore as an opener on Monday, September 14.
Other scheduled Loop Tour openers — such as Finneas and Lukas Graham — quit in solidarity with Macklemore, causing drastic changes to the start time and format of future concert dates. Sheeran later released a statement in which he denied personally removing Macklemore as a support act.
“Ed Sheeran and his team have made the decision to remove me from the Loop Tour. I am not a victim. Ed Sheeran is not a victim,” Macklemore wrote in his own statement on Monday. “We have careers, money, opportunities, safety and audiences around the world. Whatever consequences any of us face for what we say, we get to go home to our families.”
He continued, “[Ed] told me that the words ‘Free Palestine’ and the image of the Palestinian flag were hurtful to a lot of people he spoke with. I hope this isn’t the end of my relationship with Ed. Thirteen years of friendship doesn’t disappear because of one painful disagreement. I hope we both continue listening, studying what is happening in Palestine and wrestling with what neutrality means in a moment like this. My door will always be open to continuing that conversation.”
Speaking this week, Barrera argued that Sheeran should have stood firm behind Macklemore to silence critics of free speech.
“I wish that the people that have power understood the power that they have,” she told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “ I think that the problem is that there’s a lot of people that actually have a lot of power; they think that they don’t, and they’re operating out of fear, and it’s just a shame because, you know, we just saw what happened — the support that rallied behind Macklemore — and I think that’s a big step. I think that what we’re seeing, what we’re witnessing, is going to inspire real change, and I’m very hopeful about that.”
Sheeran will bring the Loop Tour to the Kraft-owned Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on Friday, September 25, and Saturday, September 26.
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