Kanye West is backing out of Coachella this year.
The rapper — who now goes by the name Ye — has dropped out of his headliner spot at the California festival, leaving organizers with a set to fill.
West was scheduled to play the closing night of the each of the festival’s weekends, which take place April 15-17 and April 22-24.
Although no reason was immediately given for the cancellation, sources told Variety magazine that the performer had not prepared or rehearsed for the appearance.
It’s the second time West has dropped out of North America’s largest music festival at the last minute. He was scheduled to headline Coachella in 2020, but cancelled mere days before the festival started.
Organizers ended up postponing that year’s festival to this year, due to the pandemic.
The 44-year-old was set to headline alongside Billie Eilish and Harry Styles this year.
Perhaps it’s been in the works for a while. Earlier this year, West threatened to pull out of Coachella if Eilish didn’t apologize to rapper Travis Scott, reported Teen Vogue.
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West reportedly thought that Eilish had “dissed” Scott when she briefly stopped an Atlanta concert to help a fan — weeks after 10 fans were killed and hundreds injured in a stampede at Scott’s Astroworld Festival.
West has also been embroiled in controversy in recent months over his publicly unpredictable treatment of his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, and her new boyfriend, SNL‘s Pete Davidson.
Last month, West released a music video that showed a claymation likeness of Davidson being kidnapped and killed. A second video, released shortly after, showed another attack on Davidson.
West was barred from performing at this year’s Grammy Awards because of his recent “concerning online behaviour” and Instagram suspended the artist for 24 hours last month after he called The Daily Show host Trevor Noah a racial slur.
Noah, a friend of West, called his treatment of Kardashian “terrifying to watch” and an example of “what so many women go through when they choose to leave.”
An online petition has also been circulating, encouraging Coachella’s organizers and other brands working with him, to drop the rapper.
Kardashian and West’s divorce has been anything but amicable, and has been subject to public scrutiny, largely due to West’s posts about his ex-wife.
Although their divorce was finalized last month, West has aired plenty of dirty laundry during the breakup in a series of social media posts.
Although most of the posts have since been deleted, West has publicly taken his ex to task for allowing their daughter, North, to appear on TikTok, and has alleged that Kardashian has purposely kept him from his children.
Kardashian filed for divorce from West at the start of 2021 after being married to the rapper for almost seven years. She and West have four children together.
West has not posted anything to his social media accounts since the Instagram ban.
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