Melissa Barrera got emotional watching Finneas, Aaron Rowe and other opening acts walk away from Ed Sheeran’s tour in support of Macklemore — because when she was fired from the “Scream” franchise in 2023 over posts criticizing Israel’s actions in Gaza, no one did the same for her.
“It was so beautiful to see Finneas and the band and all the opening acts pulling out in support of Macklemore,” Barrera told the Associated Press. “It made me emotional. You know, 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.”
The comparison she’s drawing traces back to Sheeran’s U.S. Loop Tour, where Macklemore was removed on September 14 — days after saying “Free Palestine” during his September 4 opening set at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. He also told the crowd that people in Gaza and the occupied West Bank hadn’t been forgotten.
In the fallout, Finneas and Aaron Rowe were among the opening acts who withdrew from the tour, each citing their support for Macklemore.
Barrera’s own experience played out very differently. She had starred in 2022’s “Scream” and “Scream VI” before producer Spyglass dismissed her. At the time, the company 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.”
Her fellow cast members were largely silent after the firing. Jenna Ortega and director Christopher Landon later left “Scream 7,” and Matthew Lillard recently said he felt “ashamed” for appearing in the 2026 installment.
For Barrera, the lesson is that visible solidarity can make it harder for powerful institutions to silence people. “When someone is attacked, and there are people behind being like, ‘We’re not gonna allow this,’ and the more that happens, the less that the people in power are going to try to censor it because eventually it’s not gonna work.”
She even wondered aloud what might have happened if Sheeran had refused to remove Macklemore, suggesting canceled shows could have been rebooked at other venues with the public behind him.
“I wish that the people that have power understood the power that they have,” Barrera said. “I think that what we’re seeing, what we’re witnessing, is going to inspire real change, and I’m very hopeful about that.”
