Pink Remains Unicef Ambassador as Petition Seeking Her Removal Passes 150,000 Signatures

Pink, one of the stars who backed the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), was still an ambassador on Monday. A Change.org petition to oust her passed 150,000 signatures the same day. The petition began on 11 September, when she stood by a repost attacking Macklemore's Gaza speech on Ed Sheeran's tour.

Those numbers may mean less than they look. In August 2019, Pakistan made the same demand. Pakistan asked UNICEF on 20 August 2019 to remove Goodwill Ambassador Priyanka Chopra over a tweet supporting India's armed forces. Stephane Dujarric, the UN's chief spokesman, said ambassadors who speak for themselves 'retain the right to speak.' Chopra kept the title.

What Pink Said

Pink reshared an Instagram Story from the group StopAntisemitism on 6 September. The post said Macklemore had turned his MetLife Stadium show into an attack on Israel and asked for refunds. Five days later, she said it used words she would not choose. She said she was born Jewish and that the rapper's words to Jewish fans had scared her. 'I have never asked for another artist to be silenced,' she added in the statement below.

Pink also wrote that children on both sides never chose the war, and that she had held them on her trips for UNICEF. Backers of the petition read her words another way. Their text says an ambassador 'should unify, not divide.' It accuses her of ranting at people who want an end to what it calls genocide in Gaza, and it asks UNICEF to act. A second petition on Change.org makes a matching demand.

How the UN Answered Pakistan

Pakistan's human rights minister Shireen Mazari wrote to UNICEF chief Henrietta Fore on 20 August 2019, urging her to drop Chopra as a Goodwill Ambassador. The letter accused the actress of backing war over a tweet cheering India's armed forces during a stand-off with Pakistan. Two days later, Dujarric said UNICEF expected ambassadors to stay neutral unless they spoke for it, and that their private views did not reflect the agency.

Pink's role sits one step further from UN headquarters than Chopra's did. The U.S. Fund for UNICEF, which does business as UNICEF USA, named her an ambassador in 2015, after she visited clinics for hungry children in Haiti. Caryl Stern, who ran the fund then, called her 'a passionate advocate for children and healthy living.' UNICEF USA is a US charity that raises money for the agency. UNICEF USA lists P!nk as a UNICEF Ambassador.

What Happens Next

Signing a petition shows support for a demand and binds nobody. The petition does not cite a published UNICEF USA rule that Pink's repost breached. The organisers set their own test instead: neutrality and compassion. Neither UNICEF USA nor UNICEF had publicly identified such a rule by Monday.

Pink has not answered the petition itself. On Instagram, she said she planned to keep speaking out, and she stayed on UNICEF USA's ambassador list on Monday. Ed Sheeran's US tour, where the row began, has nine dates left, and Macklemore is on none of them.