U.K.’s Wireless Festival Canceled After Withdrawal of Kanye West’s Visa
The U.K.’s Wireless Festival has been canceled after its controversial headline booking of Kanye West and the subsequent withdrawal of the rapper’s visa. In the week since West, now performing as YE, was announced as the major music festival’s top billing, leading figures from the country’s music industry and government have expressed outrage, given West’s history of promoting antisemitism.
“The Home Office has withdrawn YE’s ETA [electronic travel visa], denying him entry into the United Kingdom. As a result, Wireless Festival is cancelled and refunds will be issued to all ticket holders,” the event detailed in a statement on Tuesday.
“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 recognise 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.”
Wireless Festival, which typically draws more than 50,000 attendees per day, announced that West would headline all three days of this year’s event on April 30, and backlash followed nearly immediately. Sponsors Pepsi and Diageo pulled out of the program on Sunday, and Shabana Mahmood, the U.K. Home Secretary, began reviewing the West’s visa status earlier in the week. On April 4, Prime Minister Kier 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,” Starmer continued. “Everyone has a responsibility to ensure Britain is a place where Jewish people feel safe.”
West’s history of comments favoring Nazism dates back over a decade, but his hateful actions have intensified gravely in recent years. In 2025, the rapper produced a Super Bowl commercial that linked to a website selling only swastika t-shirts and released the song “Heil Hitler,” which has become an extremist rallying anthem after far-right influencers, including Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tate, Sneako (an associate involved in West’s 2024 presidential campaign) and Clavicular, livestreamed the song from a Miami Beach nightclub. In January, West put out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal apologizing and attributing his behavior to a brain injury and bipolar disorder. “I lost touch with reality,” he wrote. “I regret and am deeply mortified by my actions in that state, and am committed to accountability, treatment and meaningful change.”
West’s Wireless Festival performance would have marked a major return to mainstream popularity, following two sold-out comeback shows at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium that grossed more than $33 million in ticket sales last week. U.K. Health Secretary Wes Streeting accused Wireless Festival of offering West “a fig leaf of credibility.”
“When Kanye West uses bipolar disorder to justify his actions, I think that is equally appalling, by the way,” Streeting said, per The Hollywood Reporter. “I would ask people to consider, does using bipolar disorder as an excuse to write and release a song called ‘Heil Hitler’ and plaster it across T-shirts, does bipolar disorder really justify that? Or is it an excuse to justify rotten behaviour?”
