Why is Javier Bardem backing a petition to remove Pink as UNICEF ambassador after Ed Sheeran tour row involving Macklemore’s Palestine message?

Actor Javier Bardem has intervened in the controversy surrounding Pink, Macklemore and the Israel-Gaza conflict, urging followers to sign a petition to remove singer Pink as a UNICEF ambassador. The "No Country for Old Men" shared multiple Instagram posts urging followers to sign a Change.org petition demanding that Pink be removed as a UNICEF ambassador, according to Reuters. The petition Bardem promoted, titled "Remove Pink as a UNICEF Ambassador," has received more than 172,000 signatures so far. It calls on the organization to remove the singer from her position.

The petition stems from backlash after Pink criticized Macklemore's "Free Palestine" message during Ed Sheeran's tour, leading to Macklemore being removed from the tour. Petition organizers argue that Pink's comments conflict with UNICEF's mission to promote peace and uphold child rights. The Change.org petition calls on UNICEF to take decisive action and officially strip Pink of her ambassador role.

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Why Javier Bardem wants Pink to go

According to Fox News, the supporters of the petition have stated that Pink’s comments are "incompatible with the role of a UNICEF Ambassador" and say ambassadors should promote "peace, understanding, and humanitarian values above personal biases." She has been facing intense backlash for resharing a post calling out Macklemore for his pro-Palestine comments and demanding he be removed from Ed Sheeran’s ongoing tour.

Macklemore courted controversy last week during his opening set on Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour for his Free Palestine messaging, with the Israeli-American Council subsequently sharing a petition calling to have him removed from the tour. During his set last Saturday, the rapper further continued with his Free Palestine message, further saying on stage that “to all of my Jewish brothers and sisters: Criticism of Israel, criticism of apartheid, being against genocide in no way is a criticism of you.”

Javier Bardem faced criticism after supporting a campaign to remove Pink from her UNICEF role over comments she made following Macklemore’s pro-Palestinian concert appearance. Michael Rapaport mocked Bardem as a "tattletale" and accusing the actor of going after Pink through a petition rather than confronting her directly. He wrote in an Instagram caption: "Javier Bar-Dumb Dumb initiated,signed & is promoting a petition to have singer PINK removed as a UNICEF Ambassador. He’s is Bullying a Proud Jewish Woman."

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Selma Blair also weighed in in the comment section, writing: "Why would anyone want this great removed from unicef for human , humble and loving words? This makes no sense. I would think the terrifically talented actor man would worry about his own incredible life more. And allow love to flow. And listen to everybody. Not just his echo chamber. But alas."

One commenter wrote: "I'm not a big Pink fan...I like her music okay, but she was one of the many performers who actually did ads for Big Pharma pushing the vax during covid. That said, who the hell is Bardem to cancel her? The left is eating itself."

Meanwhile, supporters of Bardem's position also commented on the petition.

"Pink chose her and her rich friends' discomfort was more important than people's lives," one commenter wrote, adding that if UNICEF does not "stand with Gaza now and remove Pink," then "the world is a much darker place."

Another argued, "No ambassador can call attention to important issues while actively ignoring and deliberately misunderstanding and misrepresenting the conditions in Palestine. Pink has shown herself incapable of even acknowledging what is clear to the world, and is not fit to serve UNICEF." A third commenter questioned how Pink could remain a UNICEF advocate while, in their view, failing to support "basic human rights and free speech for all people, especially those in Gaza, the Sudan and the Congo."

Pink responds to criticism

After backlash, the singer-songwriter in an Instagram post stated that the post she had shared “said things in words I didn’t write, and I wouldn’t have chosen all of them,” further stating that “I’d rather be disagreed with for what I actually said than hated for what anybody else wrote, so let me say 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. But let me fill it in… myself.”

“Of course I don’t speak for Israel, or for any government,” she continued. “I never have. What I said in October 2023 is still exactly what I believe: Hamas is a terrorist organization. Palestinians deserve a future that honors their humanity and their aspirations. Protecting innocent life comes first, everywhere, and nobody should ever celebrate the death of a child. Anybody’s child. I’ve spent a decade as a UNICEF ambassador for kids who didn’t choose the country or the war they were born into, and I have grieved every one of them, on both sides of that fence. I didn’t do it from behind a screen; I went to those children and held them. I’m not going to litigate a complex war in an Instagram caption, and I’m not going to recite anybody’s slogan to earn back a follower.”

She continued her post in her comment section, though it appears much of her statement was removed after she limited comments on the post. Her statement in full is still available in screenshots online, including in the X post above.

“Every Jew I know knew exactly what it was,” Pink wrote Friday. “But he apologized, and I let it go, because that’s what we do. We let it go. Then last weekend he stood in front of a stadium full of music-loving families, with violent images from a war on the screens, dedicated a song to the movement of his choice, and then took the mic to tell all of the Jews in the stadium that it wasn’t about them. You don’t get to decide that for us.”

“That’s what prompted my repost,” Pink continued. “Not ‘Free Palestine,’ and not anyone’s right to say it. 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. 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, and without being told I’m somehow cool with genocide because I noticed?”

Pink further said she was “standing up for my own people, and I thought I knew going in how lonely that would be. And it’s lonelier than that. But I’m doing it anyway.” She wrote that the phrase “zionist” has become a “slur by people who couldn’t tell you the details of what I believe.”

She concluded her post in remembrance of today’s 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and for the start of Rosh Hashanah, finishing with a “shana tova” for the Jewish new year.