The Wireless Festival, a music concert scheduled for July in London, was canceled after its headliner, Kanye West (who now goes by the name “Ye”), was banned on Tuesday from entering England.
“The Home Office has withdrawn YE’s ETA [Electronic Travel Authorization], denying him entry into the United Kingdom. As a result, Wireless Festival is canceled, and refunds will be issued to all ticket holders,” the festival’s organizers said in a statement.
The backlash started with the booking announcement of West on March 30, billed as a “three-night journey through his most iconic records.” West was to perform each night of the three-day event.
However, his antisemitic rantings led Pepsi, the festival’s main sponsor, to pull its support on Sunday. The company had been Wireless’s chief sponsor since 2015 under the marketing line: “Pepsi MAX Presents Wireless.”
Diageo Brands dropped out soon after. 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—also pulled their support.
Pepsi’s decision came hours after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told The Sun that he found the inclusion of West worrisome, The New York Times reported.
Starmer told the British tabloid: “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 mounted from politicians to prevent the rapper 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 Party Parliament member Rachael Maskell told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program that he “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.
‘Present a show of change’
British Jewish organizations condemned the festival’s decision to invite the controversial celebrity in the first place.
Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said that West should not be allowed to enter the United Kingdom. “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.”
The Campaign Against Antisemitism also called for preventing entry to West. “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.”
West, 48, responded with a brief letter saying he wants to “present a show of change” and that he would like to meet with members of the U.K. Jewish community. “I know words aren’t enough. I’ll have to show change through my actions,” he wrote.
Melvin Benn, director of the Wireless Festival, defended West. In a statement identifying himself as a Jew who lived on a Kibbutz for months in the 1970s, Benn said West should be allowed to perform. “Forgiveness and giving people a second chance are becoming a lost virtue,” he said.
Rosenberg said that he would be willing to meet with West, but only on the condition that West promises not to perform this year at the festival.
“It has been less than a year since Kanye West released a song entitled ‘Heil Hitler,’ the culmination of three years of appalling antisemitism,” Rosenberg said.
“Even while claiming remorse today, his latest album includes a track first released last year with the abhorrent title ‘Gas Chamber.’ 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.
“As such, we are willing to meet Kanye West as part of his journey of healing, but only after he agrees not to play the Wireless Festival this year,” he said.
‘I am not a Nazi’
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.
