Jean-Baptiste Lacroix / AFP)
London’s Wireless Festival has now been canceled after Kanye West was officially blocked from traveling to the U.K. due to controversy surrounding his planned headlining set.
“The Home Office has withdrawn Ye’s ETA, denying him entry into the United Kingdom,” read a statement to Variety on Tuesday, April 7. “As a result, Wireless Festival is canceled and refunds will be issued to all ticket holders.”
The statement continued: “As with every Wireless Festival, 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. 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.”
Britain’s Home Office confirmed to the BBC that the rapper, 48, applied on Monday, April 6, to travel to the U.K. via an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA). A decision was ultimately made to refuse permission on the grounds that his presence would not be conducive to the public good.
West was originally booked to headline the Wireless Festival in London in July, but the choice was met with backlash following his past antisemitic comments. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has since stated that it was “deeply concerning” that West had been booked to perform “despite his previous antisemitism remarks and celebration of nazism.”
West offered on Tuesday to “meet and listen” to members of the U.K.’s Jewish community.
“I’ve been following the conversation around Wireless and want to address it directly. My only goal is to come to London and present a show of change, bringing unity, peace and love through my music,” he said in a statement.
He continued: “I 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. If you’re open, I’m here.”
Earlier this year, West made a rare comment about his problematic behavior. In an email interview with Vanity Fair in January, West spoke about his bipolar diagnosis and past antisemitic comments, saying, “When you’re manic, you really don’t think that you’re sick. You think that everyone else is deeply overreacting. You feel like you’re seeing the world so much more clearly on things, when in reality you’re losing your grip entirely.”
West addressed the marginalized communities affected by his past comments, adding, “I owe a huge apology once again for everything that I said that hurt the Jewish and Black communities in particular. All of it went too far. I look at wreckage of my episode and realize that this isn’t who I am.”
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He continued: “As a public figure, so many people follow and listen to my every word. It’s important that they realize and understand what side of history that I want to stand on. And that is one of love and positivity.”
West noted that since he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2016, he has faced challenges in his personal life.
“Toward the end of my four-month-long manic episode [last year], my medication was changed. In that shift, the antipsychotic drug took me into a really deep depressive episode,” he recalled. “My wife [Bianca Censori] recognized that, and we sought out what’s been effective and stabilizing course correction in my regime from a rehab facility in Switzerland.”
West referred to his bipolar diagnosis as a “disease” that is “one of the most lethal nonterminal illnesses.”
“Every day that I wake up, it’s a checklist of everything that I said — at least what I can recall — while in a bipolar episode,” he noted. “All of the family bonds, deep relationships and lifelong friendships that I worked so hard to build over so many years were all tarnished by all of the horrible statements that I made so impulsively.”
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