Wireless Festival Head Defends Kanye West Booking: Offer Some Forgiveness and Hope

The managing director who oversees the U.K.’s Wireless Festival has issued a new statement defending the festival’s decision to book Kanye West as a headliner, writing Monday that “forgiveness and giving people a second chance are becoming a lost virtue in this ever-increasing divisive world.”

Wireless Festival announced that West would headline the upcoming concert last week, and the move caused several companies, including Pepsi, Rockstar and PayPal, to pull their sponsorships as West remains an incredibly controversial figure over his years-long spree of antisemitic comments he’d made since 2022.

Melvin Benn, managing directorof Festival Republic (the organizer behind Wireless Festival), wrote an extensive statement Monday that started with Benn calling himself “a deeply committed anti-fascist” while voicing support for both Jewish and Palestinian states. Benn said that someone in his personal life suffers from mental health struggles that have caused “episodes of despicable behavior that I have had to forgive and move on from.”

Benn argued the festival isn’t giving West any more of a platform than the streaming services and radio stations that continue to house and broadcast his music. He encouraged critics to do the same with West, who took out an ad in the Wall Street Journal earlier this year to apologize for his comments.

“I would ask people to reflect on their instant comments of disgust at the likelihood of him performing (as was mine) and offer some forgiveness and hope to him as I have decided to do,” Benn said.

West is in the midst of a comeback following a years-long spree of hateful, antisemitic comments he’d shared, including releasing the song “Heil Hitler” last year after using a Super Bowl ad to direct people to his website, where he was selling T-Shirts with swastikas on them. He’s somehow managed to retain a sizable audience through the controversy, with his latest album, Bully, debuting at No. 2 on the Billboard chart this week. West released his album through a partnership with Gamma, the indie music company whose roster also includes Mariah Carey and Usher.

West played two concerts at SoFi Stadium last week, selling millions of dollars’ worth of tickets and bringing Lauryn Hill on stage for the second show.

Read Benn’s full comment below:

I am a deeply committed anti-fascist and have been all my adult life. I lived on a kibbutz for many months in the 1970’s that was attacked on October 7th, am pro Jew and the Jewish state, while being equally committed to a Palestinian state.

Having had a person in my life for the last 15 years who suffers from mental illness, I have witnessed many episodes of despicable behaviour that I have had to forgive and move on from. If I wasn’t before, I have become a person of forgiveness and hope in all aspects of my life, including work.

What Ye has said in the past about Jews and Hitler is as abhorrent to me as it is to the Jewish community, the Prime Minister and others that have commented and – taking him at his word – to Ye now also.

Ye’s music is played on commercial radio stations in this country. It is available via live streams and downloads in this country without comment or vitriol from anyone and he has a legal right to come into the country and to perform in this country. He is intended to come in and perform. We are not giving him a platform to extol opinion of whatever nature, only to perform the songs that are currently played on the radio stations in our country and the streaming platforms in our country and listened to and enjoyed by millions.

Forgiveness and giving people a second chance are becoming a lost virtue in this ever-increasing divisive world and I would ask people to reflect on their instant comments of disgust at the likelihood of him performing (as was mine) and offer some forgiveness and hope to him as I have decided to do.