Kanye

KANYE West’s Poland concert has been cancelled amid his tour chaos – just weeks after public outrage as he was announced as the headliner for Wireless Festival in the UK.

Over the past few years the American rapper has been mired in controversy for making a string of antisemitic, racist and pro-Nazi comments.

After his concert appeared to be cancelled by the stadium, Kanye has so far remained silent on the matter.

“We would like to inform you that the Ye (Kanye West) concert planned for June 19, 2026, at the… Slaski stadium will not take place due to formal and legal reasons,” said stadium director Adam Strzyzewski in a statement posted on Facebook.

Authorities in Poland had already signalled they would seek to ban the planned June 19 concert.

The decision by the Slaski stadium in the western city of Chorzow, first reported by Wyborcza newspaper, comes just days after he  postponed a concert in Marseille, France, “until further notice.”

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Kanye, also known as Ye, said on X: “After much thought and consideration, it is my sole decision to postpone my show in Marseille, France until further notice.”

At the time, French media reported that Interior Minister Laurent Nunez was looking to ban the June 11 gig.

A source, said to be close to Nunez, told the AFP news agency that the minister was “highly determined” to axe the event.

Just weeks ago, Wireless Festival was cancelled after Kanye was blocked from entering the UK following days of backlash.

The Home Office confirmed on April 7 that West’s application to travel to the UK had been denied amid an antisemitism row over his headline slot.

Officials said the decision to refuse permission was made on the grounds that his presence would not be conducive to the public good.

West was due to headline all three nights from July 10 to July 12 at Finsbury Park, North London – playing to 150,000 people in total.

But Wireless organiser Festival Republic confirmed the popular event had been cancelled altogether following the Government’s decision.

Festival Republic said in a statement: “The Home Office has withdrawn YE’s ETA, denying him entry into the United Kingdom.

“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 UK.”

Back in January Ye apologised for his behaviour, which he attributed to untreated bipolar disorder, and renounced past expressions of admiration for Adolf Hitler.

In a separate statement on X, the fashion designer added: “I know it takes time to understand the sincerity of my commitment to make amends.

“I take full responsibility for what’s mine but I don’t want to put my fans in the middle of it.

“My fans are everything to me. Looking forward to the next shows.”

Ye, the controversial rapper formerly known as Kanye West, faces more legal backlash amid his latest efforts to mount a comeback.

The Grammy-winning “Bully” and “All of the Lights” musician, 48, has been accused of battery and intentional inflection of distress in a lawsuit submitted Monday in Los Angeles County Superior Court. An alleged altercation in April 2024 involving Ye and a man — identified in court documents as John Doe — is at the core of the complaint. The civil suit, reviewed by The Times, accuses Ye of punching Doe in the face and repeatedly punching him while he was unconscious, leading Doe to suffer “serious” physical injuries, incur medical expenses and experience a blow to his professional reputation.

Doe seeks a jury trial and is suing for an unspecified amount in damages including loss of earnings.

A representative for Ye did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

The complaint resurfaces allegations that Ye punched a man in the late evening of April 16, 2024, in West Hollywood. At the time, TMZ reported the “Vultures” musician got physical after the unnamed man allegedly grabbed his wife, Bianca Censori, at Chateau Marmont. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed that officers had responded to the 8200 block of Sunset Boulevard at around 12:30 a.m. for a “battery investigation” but did not confirm the suspect’s identity. A representative for Ye at the time denied the rapper was a suspect in the battery case and claimed in an email that “police aren’t even investigating.”

The complaint describes the unidentified plaintiff as someone whose business relies on “personal reputation, professional relationships, and public perceptions.” Ye’s accuser is also willing to disclose his identity, the filing said, under “an appropriate protective order,” though numerous outlets reported on the victim’s suspected identity around the original incident two years ago.

According to the suit, the altercation began when Ye approached the plaintiff’s table and punched him in the face, knocking the accuser “to the ground where he hit his head and lost consciousness.” Ye allegedly proceeded to “repeatedly” punch the man as he lay on the ground, the complaint says. The plaintiff said he did nothing to provoke the rapper’s “cowardly” attack, adding that the musician “acted with malice and oppression.”

The lawsuit alleges Ye fled the scene to the protection of his security detail, leaving his accuser injured on the floor. After the incident, Ye also allegedly “falsely” accused the plaintiff of inappropriate behavior toward a woman in his party. Ye then allegedly “embellished” his claims against the plaintiff during his appearance on a “widely viewed” podcast, though the lawsuit does not explicitly name the program.

“These false statements were republished and circulated widely across social media platforms,” the lawsuit says, “exposing Plaintiff to public scorn, suspicion, and ridicule.”

In a footnote, the plaintiff clarified that his brother was also present at the time of the incident and that neither of them engaged in inappropriate conduct toward the unidentified woman. The lawsuit also mentioned the existence of video from the scene of the alleged attack.

The lawsuit said the plaintiff has suffered “severe emotional distress, including anxiety, humiliation, loss of standing in his community and harm to his professional relationships” as a result of his squabble with Ye.

The latest allegations against Ye come less than two weeks after he delivered his first full live performance in Los Angeles since 2021 at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium on April 3. Notably, Ye fell out of public favor in recent years for a number antisemitic controversies including threatening violence to Jewish people on social media and selling T-shirts emblazoned with swastikas. He issued an apology for the scandals in January, taking out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal that attributed his behavior to his bipolar disorder.

CONTROVERSIAL rapper Kanye West asked to perform at Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium — but was turned down due to the club’s historical connection to London’s Jewish community.

Yesterday Pepsi pulled their sponsorship of Wireless Festival in protest at the American performing there for three nights in July.

It came after The Sun on Sunday revealed that Sir Keir Starmer said it was “deeply concerning” that West had been booked despite previously making antisemitic remarks, as well as glorifying the Nazi leader in his song Heil Hitler.

A source said: “Kanye’s team had wanted him to play a run of shows at Tottenham before they considered Wireless.

“As part of his big music comeback, they thought he warranted a headline run of shows and chose the Tottenham stadium as their venue of choice.

“But when they approached Tottenham with their proposal, the club rejected it.

“There was no way they would allow Kanye to perform at the club given its history with the Jewish community.

“They then made the proposal to Wireless, which was accepted.”

The Sun revealed last month that 48-year-old West would headline all three nights of the festival in Finsbury Park, North London.

The performances are his first UK gigs since his 2015 Glastonbury headline slot.

But there are growing calls to ban him from entering the UK at all amid rising incidents of antisemitism.

West has previously apologised for his remarks and blamed them on his bipolar disorder.

On the first night of Passover, Ye — the superstar rapper, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, the man who once threatened in a tweet to go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE” — performed for what looked like a full house at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium.

The first of a pair of Ye concerts this week at the gigantic NFL palace, Wednesday’s show came two months after the 48-year-old musician apologized for his past antisemitic comments, attributing his behavior to injuries he sustained in a 2002 car crash.

More to the point, perhaps, the gig came on the heels of last week’s release of “Bully,” Ye’s first solo LP since 2022’s “Donda 2,” which the trade journal Hits predicts will enter the album chart at No. 2, right behind the latest from BTS.

In other words, Ye’s trying to get a comeback going — and, to judge by the very warm reception he got at SoFi, he might prove successful.

Wednesday’s concert — Ye’s first full live performance in Los Angeles since a 2021 gig at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum — lasted about two hours and featured guest appearances by Don Toliver and Ye’s 12-year-old daughter, North.

The rapper performed atop an enormous dome set up on the stadium’s floor; for much of the night, a spinning globe was projected onto the dome so that Ye looked to be — well, on top of the world is how he might’ve put it.

Early in the set, Ye asked his technical crew to “make the earth move slower,” which somebody made happen.

Accompanied by what sounded like prerecorded backing tracks, Ye opened with a handful of songs from “Bully,” which seeks a middle ground between the soulful, sample-heavy sound of his early work and the gloomier, synthed-up vibe of more recent records like “Donda” and his and Ty Dolla Sign’s “Vultures 1” and “Vultures 2.”

After an extended version of the new album’s “All the Love,” he reached back for an assortment of oldies, including all-timers like “Father, Stretch My Hands, Pt. 1,” “Mercy,” “Black Skinhead” and “Can’t Tell Me Nothing,” which he stopped and restarted after telling the crew to mute the music during the song’s line about getting his money right so that he could hear the crowd join in.

He also did his and Jay-Z’s collaborative 2011 hit — the one whose title contains the N-word — which made you think about how he and his old frenemy are both mounting comebacks at the same time, Jay-Z as a kind of retiree’s victory lap and Ye in hopes of moving past a mess of his own making.

Other classics Ye performed included “Bound 2” and “Heartless,” to name two of his most emotionally potent songs, though thick smoke in the stadium made it hard to feel a sense of connection with him as he moved back and forth atop the dome.

Ye brought out Don Toliver to perform “Moon” and Toliver’s “E85,” then cycled again through the “Bully” tracks he’d done earlier. North West came out to perform “Talking” and “Piercing on My Hand,” after which Ye did his and Ty Dolla Sign’s “Everybody,” which prominently samples the Backstreet Boys’ “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back).”

Then he finished with a sprint through some of his most beloved hits: “All Falls Down” into “Jesus Walks” into “Through the Wire” into “Good Life,” which he restarted several times because he said the lights were “corny.”

“Is this like an ‘SNL’ skit or something?” he asked when nobody made the changes he was looking for.

Ye ended the show with “All of the Lights,” which got a huge pryo display, and “Runaway,” his epic 2010 warning to anyone foolish enough to consider falling in love with him.

“Run away fast as you can,” he sang, and the crowd roared right along.

A jury found Ye, the controversial music impresario formerly known as Kanye West, liable in the legal dispute brought by his former contractor and ordered him to pay $140,000.

Tony Saxon, who also worked as Ye’s security guard and caretaker at the Malibu property, sued the rapper in Los Angeles Superior Court in September 2023, claiming a slate of labor violations, nonpayment of services and disability discrimination.

The $140,000 judgment announced Wednesday is far less than the $1.7 million in damages that Saxon’s lawyers had originally requested. Ye will also have to pay for Saxon’s legal fees, which is expected to put the total sum that West will have to pay at more than $1 million.

Although Saxon’s attorneys at the Los Angeles-based firm West Coast Trial Lawyers called the verdict a “mixed” one, they characterized it as as a “vindication for our client.”

“Ye’s lawyers called him a liar, a fraud, and a malingerer in court. His medical records, bank records, and personal family history were dissected, mocked, and vilified,” said attorney Ronald Zambrano in a statement.

“In true David-vs.-Goliath fashion, Mr. Saxon stood firm against one of the biggest celebrities in the world, with the truth on his side,” Zambrano said.

Saxon alleged that while working as a security guard on the property, he was forced to sleep on the floor and was fired in November 2021 for failing to comply with Ye’s “dangerous requests.” He also said that he frequently complained to West about these and other issues, but that the rapper failed to address them.

In a statement, Ye’s spokesperson noted the jury had “rejected almost all of his [Saxon’s ] claims,” and that Saxon only recovered “a small fraction of what his lawyers demanded.”

“The jury also found that Saxon acted in the capacity of a contractor and did not qualify for the employee exception under California’s contractor licensing statutes,” according to the statement. “We believe the damages award is legally barred and we’ll be seeking post-trial relief from the court.”

Ye purchased the beachfront concrete mansion in 2021— designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando — for $57.3 million. He then gutted the property on Malibu Road, reportedly saying, “This is going to be my bomb shelter. This is going to be my Batcave.”

Three years later, the hip-hop star sold the unfinished mansion (he had removed the windows, doors, electricity and plumbing and broke down walls), at a significant loss to developer Steven Belmont’s Belwood Investments for $21 million.

In court filings Ye denied Saxon’s allegations. In a November 2023 response to the complaint, he disputed that Saxon “has sustained any injury, damage, or loss by reason of any act, omission or breach by Defendant.”

In January, Ye sued Saxon and his law firm over a $1.8 million lien placed on the Malibu mansion, alleging they “wrongfully” placed an “invalid” lien on the property “while simultaneously launching an aggressive publicity campaign designed to pressure Ye, chill prospective transactions, and extract payment on disputed claims already being litigated in court.”

The Malibu mansion that Ye purchased and gutted was later purchased and restored to its original design.

(The Oppenheim Group / Roger Davies)

That case is pending.

Ye’s spokesperson said the lien “clouded the home’s title and interfered with its sale, destroying substantial value at the time of sale.”

In recent years, the mercurial superstar has faced a number of public and legal dramas.

In 2022, Ye lost numerous lucrative partnerships with companies like Adidas and the Gap, following a raft of antisemitic statements, including declaring himself a Nazi on X (which he later recanted).

Two years later, Ye abruptly shut down Donda Academy, the troubled private school he founded in 2020.

Ye, the school and some of his affiliated businesses faced multiple lawsuits from former employees and educators, alleging they were victims of wrongful termination, a hostile work environment and other claims.

In court filings, Ye has denied each of the claims made against him by former employees and educators at Donda.

Several of those suits have been settled.