US Rapper Macklemore has revealed that he was “scared” to perform his same-sex equality anthem ‘Same Love’ at the NRL Grand Final this year.

Macklemore strangely found himself in the middle of the same-sex marriage plebiscite here when it was revealed that he would be playing ‘Same Love’ during his pre-show set. It drew criticism from people like Tony Abbott but it also shot the song to number one on the iTunes charts.

He gave a confident performance at the time but now he’s told the NY Post that he did have some nerves going into the controversial performance.

“I was honestly a little bit scared to perform when I was flying over,” he said.

“I was checking to see what our security was like.”

He called rugby league “a macho, gladiator sport” before addressing those that were trying to stop the performance from going ahead.

“Some people were saying, ‘He’s trying to push the gay agenda,’ or, ‘You’ll turn gay if you listen to Macklemore’,” he said.