Stormzy has revealead that he is coming back stronger this year after being “crippled by sadness” in 2025, as well as hitting back at claims that he was “selling out” after his collaboration with McDonald’s. The collaboration was first announced at the start of last year, when the UK rapper teamed up with the fast food chain for the Famous Order meal. It allowed fans to order his favourite meal, and a range of merch was made available on the McDonald’s app.
People found the partnership as controversial due to McDonald’s perceived support of Israel, and highlighted how it seemed to stand in conflict with Stormzy’s beliefs. Stormzy had previously been vocal about his support for Palestine, eveb playing at a benefit concert to raise funds for aid in January 2024.
The Boycott, Divestment and 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.
Stormzy later spoke out against the “twisted narrative” that he took down the post due to the partnership with McDonald’s, and explained that he removed it as well as other posts as part of a ‘clean-up’ of his page.
Stormzy has released a statement to address the ‘twisted narrative’ following backlash over his deal with McDonalds pic.twitter.com/tgczLIJSPs
— Melissa Sigodo (@melissasigodo) February 21, 2025
Stormzy has now made an insightful post to mark the start of the new year, explaining how the past 12 months have been transformative for him, and have seem him try to overcome the feeling of being “crippled by sadness”. He began the post explaining how he faced “a few unexpected turns” at the start of 2025, which “made me more resilient and put the final nail in the coffin of my desire to be understood”. He added how the McDonald’s deal led to “a lot of you [questioning] both my character and my integrity”. He also said that his younger self would have felt “compelled quickly to explain himself, and let you know that there is no world in which he would ever trade his humanity for cash”. Nowadays, he “couldn’t give a single fuck to explain that fact” as he doesn’t “need to explain anyting to nobody”.
Going forward, he concluded that he has “gained a lot of clarity around who I am as a man and who I am as an artist, and in 2026 I want to honour that clarity with execution”. He ended by sharing how he would be distancing himself from social media going forward, and is currently still working on his fourth album.
