Sponsors back out of festival that invited Kanye West to headline despite record of antisemitism
British Jewish groups called for the government to ban Ye from entering the country
Kanye West arrived at Shanghai’s airport in July 2025 ahead of a concert he was performing in the city. Photo by Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images
(JTA) — A major London music festival is facing a wave of canceled sponsorships as well as criticism from Prime Minister Keir Starmer after after announcing that Ye, the rapper with a record of antisemitism, would be its headliner.
Ye, who recently apologized for a years-long spree of antisemitic and Nazi rhetoric, is slated to headline all three nights at the Wireless Festival in Finsbury Park, North London, in July. The festival is expected to draw roughly 50,000 attendees per day.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer criticized the pick in a statement to The Sun on Sunday.
“It is deeply concerning Kanye West has been booked to perform at Wireless despite his previous antisemitic remarks and celebration of Nazism,” Starmer said. “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.”
Ye’s antisemitism controversies erupted in October 2022, when the rapper vowed to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” Last year, he bought a Super Bowl ad to promote T-shirts with swastikas and released a song titled “Heil Hitler” that featured a lengthy sample from a Hitler speech.
He has since apologized multiple times, taking out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal in January to apologize for his history of antisemitic remarks and stunts, which he said resulted from mental health issues. He also met with a rabbi in November as part of an apology tour and swore off antisemitism in a social media post earlier last year.
Following Starmer’s remarks, Pepsi, which was the festival’s primary sponsor, announced that it had “decided to withdraw its sponsorship” from Wireless.
Other sponsors of the festival, including the brewery company Diageo, and Wireless partners Captain Morgan and Johnnie Walker, have also withdrawn their support for the festival. Another corporate partner of the festival, PayPal, will no longer have its branding used in any promotional material for the festival, according to ITV News and BBC.
Last year, following the release of “Heil Hitler,” Australia cancelled Ye’s visa to visit the country. The Campaign Against Antisemitism, a British antisemitism watchdog, has called on Starmer to ban Ye from entering the United Kingdom altogether.
“The Prime Minister is right to be deeply concerned that @WirelessFest wants to headline someone whose anti-Jewish bigotry has gone as far as recording a track titled ‘Heil Hitler’ less than a year ago,” the antisemitism group wrote in a post on X. “But the Prime Minister is not a bystander. The Government can ban anyone from entering the UK who is not a citizen and whose presence would ‘not be conducive to the public good’. Surely this is a clear case.”
Phil Rosenberg, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, also denounced the festival in a statement, accusing its organizers of “profiteering from racism” and calling on the government to ban the artist.
“As we have said over the last week, Wireless Festival have made absolutely the wrong decision in inviting Kanye West to headline their festival over three days,’ Rosenberg said. “A man who has described himself as a Nazi, released a song called, “Heil Hitler”, and said the 400 year enslavement of black people was ‘like a choice’, is clearly not an appropriate booking for this event.”
The brouhaha comes as Ye played two sold-out shows in Los Angeles, including one on the first night of Passover. He reportedly netted $33 million in ticket sales from the concerts.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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