The rapper formerly known as Kanye West has been barred from entering the U.K., where he was scheduled to perform as a headliner at the Wireless Festival in July.
As a result of West’s denied entry, the Wireless Festival has announced that its 2026 event will be cancelled.
The festival’s organizers confirmed the ban and said the entire three-day festival has been nixed.
“As a result of the Home Office banning YE from entering the United Kingdom, Wireless Festival has been forced to cancel. All ticket holders will receive an automatic full refund,” a note on the official website read.
West, legally known as Ye, made an application to travel to the U.K. via an Electronic Travel Authorization on Monday, but it has now been blocked by officials on the grounds that the performer’s presence in the country would not be “conducive to the public good,” the BBC said, citing the Home Office.
The 48-year-old rapper was booked to perform in front of around 150,000 revellers July 10-12 at the open-air festival in London’s Finsbury Park.
Here’s everything we know about the U.K’s Wireless Festival cancellation amid the Kanye West controversy.
West offered to meet Jewish community as he faced U.K. festival backlash
A senior member of the British government said Tuesday that West should “absolutely not” play the Wireless Festival as the rapper offered to meet members of the U.K.’s Jewish community to show he purportedly changed since provoking outrage with multiple antisemitic statements over the past year.
“His permission to enter the U.K. is under review as we speak. All options remain on the table,” said U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s spokesman, Tom Wells, earlier this week.
In a statement Tuesday, West said he “would be grateful for the opportunity to meet with members of the Jewish community in the U.K. in person, to listen.”
“I know words aren’t enough — I’ll have to show change through my actions,” West said. “If you’re open, I’m here.”
Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said the group would be willing to meet with the musician if he pulled out of the festival.
“The Jewish community will want to see a genuine remorse and change before believing that the appropriate place to test this sincerity is on the main stage at the Wireless Festival,” Rosenberg said.
After it was announced that West had been denied entry, Rosenberg released a statement, writing, “We are immensely grateful for the support of those across the political spectrum and from other minority and faith communities. It should not be for the Jewish community alone to advocate for our safety; it is incumbent on the entire arts and culture sector, and civil society as a whole, to recognise the scourge of antisemitism.”
This comes after West released a song called Heil Hitler last year and advertised a swastika T-shirt for sale on his website. West apologized in January with a letter, published as a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. He said his bipolar disorder led him to fall into “a four-month long, manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life.”
Sponsors pull back after West announced as headliner for three-day festival
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Wireless Festival organizers faced pressure from sponsors and politicians to cancel the gigs by West, who has drawn widespread condemnation for making antisemitic remarks and voicing admiration for Adolf Hitler.
Wireless sponsors Pepsi, Rockstar Energy and Diageo all pulled out of the festival after West was announced as headliner.
The festival’s primary sponsor, Pepsi, announced Sunday that it was withdrawing from co-branding with Wireless. The festival had officially been known as “Pepsi Presents Wireless,” as part of a longstanding partnership that had been in place since 2015.
Pepsi announced it was withdrawing as a sponsor hours after Starmer said he was “deeply concerned” that West had been chosen to perform at the festival.
“Antisemitism in any form is abhorrent and must be confronted firmly wherever it appears,” Starmer told The Sun newspaper. “Everyone has a responsibility to ensure Britain is a place where Jewish people feel safe.”
On Monday, Diageo, owner of the Johnnie Walker and Captain Morgan alcohol brands, said it would also pulling out of its sponsorship.
“We have informed the organizers of our concerns and as it stands, Diageo will not sponsor the 2026 Wireless Festival,” a representative for the company said.
Rockstar withdrew its sponsorship and Paypal said its branding would no longer be used at the festival, but did not pull out completely.
Wireless Festival organizer stood by West
Concert organizer Festival Republic stood by West in a statement issued Monday after news of the lost sponsorships spread.
Melvin Benn, managing director at Festival Republic, which promotes Wireless Festival, urged people to offer the performer “forgiveness and hope.”
“What Ye has said in the past about Jews and Hitler is as abhorrent to me as it is to the Jewish community, the Prime Minister and others that have commented and – taking him at his word – to Ye now also,” Benn wrote.
“Ye’s music is played on commercial radio stations in this country. It is available via live streams and downloads in this country without comment or vitriol from anyone and he has a legal right to come into the country and to perform in this country.
“He is intended to come in and perform. We are not giving him a platform to extol opinion of whatever nature, only to perform the songs that are currently played on the radio stations in our country and the streaming platforms in our country and listened to and enjoyed by millions,” the statement said.
“Forgiveness and giving people a second chance are becoming a lost virtue in this ever-increasing divisive world and I would ask people to reflect on their instant comments of disgust at the likelihood of him performing (as was mine) and offer some forgiveness and hope to him as I have decided to do,” he added.
Following the cancellation, Festival Republic said that “multiple stakeholders were consulted in advance of booking Ye and no concerns were highlighted at the time.
“Antisemitism in all its forms is abhorrent, and we recognize the real and personal impact these issues have had,” it said in a statement. “As Ye said today, he acknowledges that words alone are not enough, and in spite of this still hopes to be given the opportunity to begin a conversation with the Jewish community in the U.K.”
West has not publicly commented on the cancellation as of this writing.
West entry visa revoked by Australia in 2025 after Heil Hitler song release
West had previously been barred from entering Australia in July following the release of his pro-Nazi song Heil Hitler.
Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said West had been travelling for years to Australia, where his wife, Bianca Censori, was born. Her family lives in Melbourne.
Burke said Heil Hitler promotes Nazism. The song, released last May, has been criticized as an antisemitic tribute to Hitler. It was also been banned in Germany and from online platforms including Apple Music, YouTube and Spotify.
The song includes a direct sample from a speech Hitler gave in 1935 and repeats the slogan hailing the German dictator.
“He’s been coming to Australia for a long time. He’s got family here. And he’s made a lot of offensive comments that my officials looked at again once he released the Heil Hitler song and he no longer has a valid visa in Australia,” Burke told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“If you’re going to have a song and promote that sort of Nazism, we don’t need that in Australia,” Burke added. “We have enough problems in this country already without deliberately importing bigotry.”
He noted that the Australian government had not banned West from entering Australia permanently because “every visa application gets reassessed by my officials each time.”
A spokesperson for the home affairs department told the Guardian Australia at the time that the “government will continue to act decisively to protect the community from the risk of harm posed by individuals who choose to engage in criminal activity or behaviour of concern, including visa cancellation or refusal where appropriate.”
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— With files from The Associated Press
