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Kanye West‘s concert has been cancelled, days after the rapper postponed a show in France amid a furore over his past antisemitic comments and celebration of Nazism.
‘We would like to inform you that the Ye (Kanye West) concert planned for 19 June 2026 at the… Slaski stadium will not take place due to formal and legal reasons,’ stadium director Adam Strzyzewski said in a statement posted on Facebook.
There was no immediate comment from the rapper, who in January apologised for his behaviour, which he attributed to untreated bipolar disorder, and renounced past expressions of admiration for Adolf Hitler.
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 on its website, comes just over a week after the Home Offie banned the star from flying to the UK for a headline appearance at London’s Wireless Festival in July.
Wireless has since been cancelled amid calls for the annual celebration of urban music to be indefinitely axed over its decision to overlook West’s unsavoury track record of anti-semitism.
Kanye West’s concert has been cancelled, days after the rapper postponed a show in France amid a furore over his past antisemitic comments and celebration of Nazism
Authorities in Poland had already signalled they would seek to ban the planned June 19 concert (Slaski stadium in Krakow pictured)
‘In a country scarred by the history of the Holocaust, we cannot pretend that this is just entertainment,’ Polish Culture Minister Marta Cienkowska said on Thursday.
More than 1.1 million people, most of them Jews, were murdered at the Auschwitz death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War Two. Nazi Germany killed more than 3 million of Poland’s 3.2 million Jewish population.
The rapper, now known as Ye, was barred from Australia last year after releasing a song promoting Nazism and advertising swastika T-shirts on his website.
He has performed in the United States and Mexico City this year, with further concerts planned in Europe and Asia.
In January West printed a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal, in which he apologised for his antisemitic statements and attributed them to the lingering effects of a traumatic brain injury that he allegedly suffered in a 2002 car crash.
An hour and a half after sharing his terse initial statement, West returned to X with a lengthier post reiterating his desire to prove that he had changed his ways and made strides in his recovery.
‘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,’ West wrote. ‘My fans are everything to me[.] Looking forward to the next shows[.] See you at the top of the globe.’
West had been scheduled to perform a concert at Marseille’s Velodrome stadium on June 11, but the concert met with significant resistance in France.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said he was ‘highly determined’ and exploring ‘all options’ to ban the rapper’s only concert in France this summer, a source close to the minister told AFP.
Earlier this year, the city’s socialist mayor, Benoît Payan declared that the Gold Digger hitmaker was ‘not welcome’ in Marseille, stating on social media: ‘I refuse to let Marseille be a showcase for those who promote hatred and unabashed Nazism’.
The rapper drew criticism last year after he released a song titled Heil Hitler and advertised a swastika T-shirt for sale on his website.
West had applied for an electronic travel authorization to visit the UK, but it was blocked by the government because his presence in the country would not be ‘conducive to the public good.’
‘Kanye West should never have been invited to headline Wireless,’ Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a statement posted on social media.
‘This government stands firmly with the Jewish community, and we will not stop in our fight to confront and defeat the poison of antisemitism. We will always take the action necessary to protect the public and uphold our values.’
The rapper 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.
The controversial rapper attempted to paint the decision to delay his French concert until an unspecified date as something that was wholly his decision in a post on X
The event’s organizers had been under mounting pressure from sponsors and politicians to cancel the West performance, as he has drawn widespread condemnation for making antisemitic remarks and voicing admiration for Adolf Hitler.
He said his bipolar disorder led him to fall into ‘a four-month long, manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life.’
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said Ye’s actions amounted to a ‘pattern of behavior’, citing the song Heil Hitler and his offensive merchandise, and he accused West of using mental health as an excuse.
Festival Republic managing director Melvin Benn had previously said Ye’s comments were ‘abhorrent’ but defended the booking, arguing against denying artists second chances.
Jewish groups welcomed the visa decision. The Board of Deputies of British Jews said meaningful engagement would require genuine remorse, while the Jewish Leadership Council had condemned the booking amid a rise in antisemitic attacks.
West has not performed in Britain since headlining Glastonbury in 2015. Sponsors including Diageo, Pepsi and Anheuser‑Busch InBev withdrew support for Wireless, while PayPal said its branding would not appear in future Wireless promotional materials.