UK government blocks Kanye West from entering Britain to headline festival

The rapper formerly known as Kanye West was barred Tuesday from entering the UK, where he was scheduled to headline the Wireless Festival in July, after a backlash over Ye’s history of antisemitic remarks.Festival organisers canceled the three-day outdoor event as a result of the travel ban and said those who had bought tickets would get refunds.Ye had been granted an electronic travel authorization which has now been withdrawn on the grounds that his presence in the U.K. would not be “conducive to the public good,” the BBC said, citing the Home Office.The rapper, who changed his name in 2021, had been expected to play his first UK dates for more than a decade in front of around 150,000 revelers over three nights July 10-12 at the Wireless Festival, in London’s Finsbury Park. Other acts for the festival had not yet been announced.Festival organisers had been under mounting pressure from sponsors and politicians to cancel the gigs by the rapper, who has drawn widespread condemnation for making antisemitic remarks and voicing admiration for Adolf Hitler.Ye had responded to the controversy by offering to meet members of Britain’s Jewish community and show he has changed since provoking outrage with antisemitic statements. Photo: AFPLast year, Ye released a song called “Heil Hitler” and advertised a swastika T-shirt for sale on his website. The 48-year-old apologised in January with a letter, published as a full-page in The Wall Street Journal. He said his bipolar disorder led him to fall into “a four-month long, manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behaviour that destroyed my life”.