The scheduled three-night headlining appearance by Ye, formerly Kanye West, at July’s Wireless Festival in London is only growing in controversy. The festival’s primary sponsor, Pepsi, announced Sunday that it is withdrawing from its decade-plus co-branding with Wireless, and was followed later in the day by Diageo, owner of the Johnnie Walker and Captain Morgan alcohol brands, stating that it too was pulling out of its sponsorship. Although the statement did not mention the rapper by name, it came hours after Ye’s booking was roundly condemned by the U.K.’s prime minister, Keir Starmer.
On Monday, two more sponsors pulled back, with sources telling Variety that Rockstar is withdrawing its sponsorship, and the BBC reported that Paypal will no longer allow its branding to be used, although it apparently has not pulled out completely.
However, all of the brands were still present on the festival’s website as of Monday morning (April 6). Remaining festival sponsors include Budweiser, Beatbox and Drip.
Either way, the festival’s future seems to be in question.
The festival had officially been known as “Pepsi MAX Presents Wireless,” as part of a partnership that had been in place since 2015. Although many music fans welcomed Ye’s return to the stage there, Pepsi had also widely tagged in outraged tweets protesting the company’s apparent support for him as sole headliner
Prime Minister Starmer had made it clear that he, for one, was not ready to normalise Kanye West yet, now that the hip-hop superstar is seemingly returning to touring business as usual in other countries.
“It is deeply concerning Kanye West has been booked to perform at Wireless despite his previous antisemitic remarks and celebration of Nazism,” Starmer said in a statement to the British newspaper the Sun. “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.”
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Starmer was not the first political figure in the U.K. to raise an objection to the scheduled London appearance by Ye. Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey expressed his view Thursday that Ye should be banned from entering the U.K., saying that “we need to get tougher on antisemitism.”
And London mayor Sadiq Khan on Wednesday made statements distancing the city’s government from the festival at Finsbury Park on July 10-12. “We are clear that the past comments and actions of this artist are offensive and wrong, and are simply not reflective of London’s values,” a spokesperson for the Mayor said. “This was a decision taken by the festival organisers and not one that City Hall is involved in.”
The alarm in some circles overseas follows what is being seen as the beginning of a successful comeback by Ye in the U.S. He just played two nights at SoFi Stadium in the Los Angeles area, where he was joined by guest stars including Lauryn Hill, Travis Scott and Don Toliver, performing from atop a giant half-globe in the middle of the enormous venue.
Ye published a full-page apology ad in the Wall Street Journal in January, acknowledging disturbing behaviour that has made him a pariah in recent years. The hip-hop titan said in the ad that he has been getting treatment for a brain condition after last year suffering “a four-month-long manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behaviour that destroyed my life.”
He followed that with an interview in Vanity Fair expressing similar sentiments of contrition. However, the magazine acknowledged that the Q&A was conducted by email and not live, leading some to believe an advisor was writing the answers for him, on top of suspicions that the WSJ ad may have been ghost-written as well. Ye has yet to make any of these penitent statements in anything other than written form.
It has been less than a year since Ye released the song “Heil Hitler,” which was banned from all major streaming platforms when it came out last May. He subsequently announced he was “done with antisemitism” and issued a new version of “Heil Hitler,” now renamed “Hallelujah,” with references to Nazism changed to Christian lyrics. Previously in 2025, he had sold swastika T-shirts on the web before the site was taken down.
There was some thought that Ye might address the issues in his SoFi Stadium appearances, but he stuck to the tenor of triumph. ““That’s what 80,000 people sound like, ladies and gentlemen,” he told the crowd at his second SoFi show on Friday. “They said I’d never be back in the States. Two sold-out concerts, baby!”
He also told the audience, “I want to thank y’all for sticking by me all these years. Through the hard times, through the low times. I love you for that.” The SoFi Stadium shows were his first substantial U.S. solo shows in five years.
Ye’s three-night appearance at the Wireless Festival are being billed as his first U.K. appearance in 11 years. Some Jewish leaders in the U.K. immediately slammed the booking as “deeply irresponsible,” like the Jewish Leadership Council, which said in a statement to the Guardian, “West has repeatedly used his platform to spread antisemitism and pro-Nazi messaging … Any venue or festival should reconsider before providing their platform to Kanye West to spread his antisemitism.”
Pepsi has been prominent on the Wireless Festival branding as the “headline partner,” but the festival website also lists a number of other “partners” that may find themselves under similar pressure to stand with or against the Ye booking, including PayPal, Rockstar Energy Drink, Budweiser, Johnnie Walker, Drip, Beatbox, Drip and Big Green Coach. As of this writing none had yet followed Pepsi in staking a position.
Ye’s latest album, “Bully,” was announced as debuting at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart when results were announced Sunday. Critics have noted the album is on the benign side for the artist, as controversial lyrics go, without any of the disturbing content that made its way into recent projects like “Vultures 1,” his 2024 collaboration with Ty Dolla $ign, which debuted at No. 1, or his unreleased but leaked 2025 “Cuck” project, which was to have included the withdrawn “Heil Hitler” single.
From Variety US