Pepsi withdrew its sponsorship from a British music festival on Sunday over the participation of the artist formerly known as Kanye West, now Ye.
West is set to headline all three nights of the event, dubbed the Wireless Festival, which takes place in London in July. The booking announcement was made on March 30 and billed as a “three-night journey through his most iconic records.”
Pepsi had been the festival’s main sponsor since 2015 under the marketing line: “Pepsi Presents Wireless.”
Diageo Brands also dropped out. Its labels Johnnie Walker and Captain Morgan were to be partner brands. “We have informed the organizers of our concerns, and as it stands, Diageo will not sponsor the 2026 Wireless festival,” it said in a statement.
Three additional sponsors, Paypal, Rockstar Energy Drink and Anheuser-Busch InBev, later also pulled support.
Pepsi’s decision came hours after Prime Minister Keir Starmer told British paper The Sun that he found the inclusion of West worrisome, The New York Times reported.
Starmer told The Sun, “It is deeply concerning Kanye West has been booked to perform at Wireless despite his previous antisemitic remarks and celebration of Nazism. Antisemitism in any form is abhorrent and must be confronted firmly wherever it appears. Everyone has a responsibility to ensure Britain is a place where Jewish people feel safe.”
Pressure is mounting among politicians to prevent West from entering the country. Conservative Party MP Chris Philp wrote to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood asking her to block West. Philp described the musician’s previous comments as “not a one-off lapse, but a pattern of behavior that has caused real offense and distress to Jewish communities.”
Labour MP Rachael Maskell told the BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program: "[H]e should not be allowed to come to our country to perform in the light of the antisemitic comments that he has made and recorded.”
Ed Davey, head of the Liberal Democrats, also called for the government to ban West. “We need to get tougher on antisemitism,” he said.
British Jewish organizations condemned the festival’s decision to invite the rapper.
Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said West should not be allowed to enter the U.K. “We’re in this moment of really high levels of antisemitism,” he told BBC Two‘s “Newsnight” on March 31. “So to have someone whose recent track record is, as you said, declaring himself a Nazi, putting out a song called ‘Heil Hitler,’ seems to be absolutely the wrong decision and many Jewish people will worry that that will just inflame what is already a very febrile situation.”
“We think the government should consider ... blocking him from entering the country,” Rosenberg said.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism also called for preventing West’s entry. “The government can ban anyone from entering the U.K. who is not a citizen and whose presence would ‘not be conducive to the public good.’ Surely this is a clear case,” the group stated on X.
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Education Trust, told The Sun on Sunday that West’s coming appearance “is causing distress to Britain’s Jewish community due to his previous antisemitism and support for Hitler. ... [I]f an artist had singled out any other ethnic or religious group for such horrific abuse, you’d expect them never to get a gig ever again, let alone headlining major U.K. festivals.”
Wireless isn’t the first music festival to cancel the rapper. The Rubicon Hip Hop Festival in Bratislava, Slovakia, dropped West from its July 2025 lineup in what would have been his only confirmed European performance of the year, AFP reported. Festival organizers cited “media pressure and the withdrawal of several artists and partners.”
West, who has a history of antisemitic comments, has attempted to put daylight between himself and his past statements. On Jan. 26, he took out a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal apologizing for his behavior, blaming it on bipolar disorder. “I am not a Nazi or an antisemite,” he wrote. “I love Jewish people.”
West’s antisemitism has cost him financially. After his Oct. 8, 2022, tweet in which he promised to go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” Adidas ended its “Yeezy” brand deal with the rapper. West’s net worth dropped from $2 billion to $400 million with the loss of that partnership.
Then, in May 2025, West released a song titled “Heil Hitler.” He also has advertised swastika T-shirts on his website.
