Kanye West concert in Poland will be cancelled, newspaper reports

Kanye West, known as Ye, watches the first half of an NBA basketball game between the Washington Wizards and the Los Angeles Lakers, on March 11, 2022, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

WARSAW -- Stadium managers in Poland said on Friday they will cancel a concert by U.S. rapper Kanye West, local media reported, days after he postponed a show in France amid a furor over his past antisemitic comments and celebration of Nazism.

The decision by Slaski stadium in the western city of Chorzow, reported by Wyborcza newspaper on its website, comes just over a week after Britain blocked the 48-year-old from traveling to the country to headline a festival.

There was no immediate comment from the rapper, now known as Ye, who in January apologized for his behavior, which he attributed to untreated bipolar disorder, and renounced past expressions of admiration for Adolf Hitler.

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

“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 concert will not take place,” wyborcza.pl reported a representative of the stadium as saying. “We will inform the organizer in a few hours. Our lawyers are preparing a letter regarding this matter.”

The stadium did not immediately reply to a request for confirmation.

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.

Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Editing by Andrew Heavens.