Stormzy has addressed the claims of him “selling out” over his deal with McDonald’s. The deal was first announced at the start of last year, when the UK rapper teamed up with the fast food chain for the UK and Ireland’s first Famous Order meal. It let fans order his favourite meal and range of merch was also made available via the McDonald’s app. Some found the partnership to be controversial given McDonald’s perceived support of Israel and highlighted how it seemed to stand in conflict with Stormzy’s beliefs, according to NME.
Around the time the collaboration was announced, fans noticed that the rapper had removed a social media post from October 2023 that outlined his support of Palestine.
Stormzy spoke against the “twisted narrative” that he took down the post due to the partnership with McDonald’s and explained that he removed several posts from his page as part of a ‘clean-up’.
“In that post I spoke about #FreePalestine, oppression and injustice and my stance on this has not changed,” he began, “The brands I work with can’t tell me what to do and don’t tell me what to do otherwise I wouldn’t work with them.” He then wrote about how the McDonald’s deal led to “a lot of you [questioning] both my character and my integrity,” he said that his younger self would have felt “compelled to quickly explain himself and let you know that there is no world in which he would ever trade his humanity for cash”. He now “couldn’t give a single fuck to explain that fact” as he doesn’t “need to explain anything to anybody”.
The Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement previously supported a global boycott of McDonald’s, after franchises in Israel gave out thousands of free meals to Israeli forces following Hamas’ attack on the country on October 7. Around the time of Stormzy’s deal with McDonald’s, the company’s CEO Chris Kempczinski denied that the company has taken sides in the conflict, calling the boycotts “disheartening and ill-founded” and saying they are a result of “misinformation”.
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