Coachella replaces Kanye West with The Weeknd, Swedish House Mafia after rapper's exit
Apr 07, 2022
Washington [US], April 7 : The Coachella Music and Arts Festival has replaced rapper Kanye West as a headliner at next week's event with The Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia.
As per Deadline, the decision comes two days after the 'Donda' rapper pulled out his name from the prestigious music festival that is scheduled to be held from April 15-17 and 22-24, this year.
Though the reason for his cancellation is not clear yet, West had already threatened to pull out of this year's festival earlier in February after demanding fellow headliner Billie Eilish to apologize to Travis Scott for what West says was a diss to Scott over his Astroworld festival incident.
For the unversed, Eilish stopped a show in Atlanta to ask her crew to get an inhaler for a fan who was having breathing problems in front of the stage. She said at the time, "I wait for people to be OK before I keep going," which some including Kanye West perceived to be a diss to Scott after 10 people died at his Astroworld festival in Houston in November.
West, 44, said he will not perform with the 'Happier Than Ever' star until she apologizes publically to Scott.
She did not issue an apology to Scott. "Literally never said a thing about Travis. Was just helping a fan," she rather said in response to the criticism.
This cancelled performance follows the 64th Grammy Award ceremony, the rapper had also been barred from a planned appearance, due to his 'concerning online behaviour'.
The controversy blew when Kanye publicly attacked Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson online following Kim's divorce from West.
Kanye, who was slated to perform at Coachella on April 17 and 24, had previously cancelled the closing dates of his 2016 Saint Pablo tour, and was hospitalised shortly afterwards. He had accepted it multiple times that he suffers from bipolar disorder, and the pattern of incidents establish the shift in his behaviour in recent months.
Coachella, having been headlined by Kanye in 2011, is North America's largest music festival and has already sold out 125,000 per-day tickets.
The music festival scheduled to be held at the Empire Polo Ground in Indio, California, begins next week on April 15, with Billie Eilish and Harry Styles headlining the highly celebrated global event.
