Hayley Williamsturned her solo tour stop at theFox Theater in Oakland, California, on Saturday 9 May into a blunt political statement, shouting 'F*** ICE' and 'Free Palestine' mid-song during her performance of Ice in My OJ. Audience-shot footage quickly spread on X, capturing the Paramore frontwoman's attack onUS Immigration and Customs Enforcementand her latest show of support for Palestinians.
The moment was not an isolated outburst. Williams has been using herAt a Bachelor Party Tourto confront US immigration policy and the wider political climate, with fan videos from multiple dates showing her repeatedly stopping Ice in My OJ to denounce ICE. What happened in Oakland appeared to be the clearest expression yet of a message she has been building for months.
The Oakland performance fits into a broader political line Williams has been developing in public since earlier this year. In February, she published a lengthySubstack essaydescribing the current US climate as 'exhausting' and directly namingPresident Donald Trump, ICE, Jeffrey Epstein, 'multiple genocides' and civic mismanagement as part of that picture.
She argued that proposed federal budget cuts would 'do away with music and arts education', framing the move as ideological rather than administrative. 'Fascism hates art and expression because art and expression signal all sorts of freedoms. Art cannot be controlled or contained,' she wrote.
Paramore lead singer Hayley Williams shouted “Fuck ICE” and “Free Palestine” during her recent concert in Oakland, California.pic.twitter.com/5JENFbT6ZM
In the essay, Williams reflected on the period around Paramore's 2023 albumThis Is Whyand her decision to become 'more publicly political'. She acknowledged that the choice came with backlash, recalling what she called 'pretty cringe ridicule' from people whose values 'seem to differ starkly' from hers, including 'FOX news pundits or Elon Musk himself'.
Musk did publicly criticise her in 2024 after an anti-Trump speech she gave at the iHeartRadio Music Festival. According to reports, he described her as 'another puppet of the machine' and called her 'so disappointing' after she used Paramore's performance ofBig Man, Little Dignityto warn about Project 2025.
During that speech, Williams described Project 2025 as 'Donald Trump's playbook for controlling and punishing women, poor people, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community'. She urged the crowd to confront Trump at the ballot box and framed the election as a test of whether Americans wanted 'to live in a dictatorship'.
By her own account, Williams once believed political organising could stop Trump's return. In herFebruary essay, written during his current presidency, she admitted that optimism had faded.
She wrote that she had 'so much hope back then that we'd beat Trump at the polls' but now saw 'Trump, our president once more, still shits his suits and lies through his teeth about everything'. The language was crude, but the message was clear. She sees the political climate as darker and more urgent than before.
Source: International Business Times UK
