Kanye West was booked as a festival headliner. Brands are now pulling their sponsorship

(CNN) — Pepsi and brewery company Diageo have withdrawn their sponsorship of the UK’s 2026 Wireless Festival after it was announced that Kanye West would headline the three-day event.

The rapper, who goes by the name Ye, has faced backlash in recent years after making repeated antisemitic and offensive remarks.

Pepsi was the main sponsor of Wireless, which will be held in London’s Finsbury Park from July 10-12.

“Pepsi has decided to withdraw its sponsorship of Wireless Festival,” a company spokesperson told CNN Monday.

Diageo, which owns brands such as Guinness, Baileys, Smirnoff, Ciroc and Wireless partners Captain Morgan and Johnnie Walker, has also withdrawn its support for the festival.

“We have informed the organisers of our concerns and as it stands, Diageo will not sponsor the 2026 Wireless festival,” a spokesperson for Diageo told CNN.

CNN has reached out to Wireless Festival and other partners for comment.

West – who previously said he had bipolar disorder before saying last year that he had been misdiagnosed and instead has autism – took out a full-page advert in the Wall Street Journal in January to apologize for his previous comments.

“I lost touch with reality. Things got worse the longer I ignored the problem. I said and did things I deeply regret,” he wrote. “In that fractured state, I gravitated toward the most destructive symbol I could find, the swastika, and even sold T-shirts bearing it.”

Wireless is one of the UK’s biggest music festivals, attracting up to 150,000 attendees each year.

Festival organizers announced last week that West, who has not performed in the UK since headlining Glastonbury in 2015, will be the headliner for all three days of the festival, sparking controversy.

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was among those to condemn the move over the weekend, saying in a statement shared with CNN: “It is deeply concerning that Kanye West has been booked to perform at Wireless despite his previous antisemitic remarks and celebration of Nazism.”

The charity Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) has called for West to be banned from entering the UK.

“The Prime Minister is right to be deeply concerned that @WirelessFest wants to headline someone whose anti-Jewish bigotry has gone as far as recording a track titled ‘Heil Hitler’ less than a year ago,” said CAA in a post on X on Sunday, adding: “But the Prime Minister is not a bystander.”

“The Government can ban anyone from entering the UK who is not a citizen and whose presence would ‘not be conducive to the public good,” CAA continued, adding: “Surely this is a clear case.”

The move comes amid growing concern that antisemitism is on the rise in Britain.

Last month, British police arrested two men following a suspected antisemitic arson attack, in which several ambulances belonging to a Jewish volunteer rescue organization were set on fire in London’s largest Jewish community.

The president of the community organization Board of Deputies of British Jews, Phil Rosenberg, issued a statement on Sunday, saying Wireless Festival “should not be profiteering from racism” by inviting West to headline, adding that the “decision breaches Wireless’s own charter” on not tolerating discrimination.

This is the latest controversy surrounding West in recent years.

In July, the rapper had his Australian visa canceled after he released “Heil Hitler,” a song promoting Nazism.

In 2022, Adidas, Balenciaga, TJ Maxx and Gap cut ties with West, who is also a fashion designer, after he made antisemitic remarks and wore a shirt with the slogan “White Lives Matter.”

He was also suspended from X that year for violating its rules on inciting violence, but had his account reactivated in 2023.

The-CNN-Wire
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