Kanye “Ye” West, has had his sold-out concerts in Russia, set for next weekend, canceled after weeks of back-and-forth between the promoter and the St. Petersburg stadium. The venue’s promotion of the shows dwindled as the country’s foreign ministry and political figures began to speak out about the rap mogul’s history of antisemitism.
Say Agency, the event promoter, posted on Telegram on Thursday that the shows scheduled for Gazprom Arena in St. Petersburg on Oct. 10 and 11 would no longer go ahead. The agency did not indicate that they would be rescheduled.
“Friends, it is with sincere regret that we inform you that the Ye concerts in St. Petersburg on the scheduled dates will not be able to take place,” the Moscow-based promoter said. “In the near future, we will reach out to you with an official statement regarding the status of the project and future plans.
“Say Agency is very grateful to everyone who has been by our side these past month and a half: supporting us, worrying and, like us, waiting for these concerts with all their hearts. We remain in touch and continue to work.”
After the show was announced, the arena offered an enthusiastic endorsement of West, calling him “the most influential musical artist of our time.” That tone shifted in August, after the two nights sold out, when the arena announced that no contract had been signed for the concerts and that its management “was not and is not” responsible for the booking.
The concerts had already become politicized in the country ahead of this announcement. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova publicly deemed the planned gigs unacceptable, citing West’s comments glorifying Hitler. And Nikolay Novichkov, a deputy of the 8th State Duma, publicly called for a probe into the Hitler comments and said the concerts should be canceled lest the rapper publicly support the war in Ukraine.
The St. Petersburg shows are the latest casualties of West’s 2026 tour. His comeback album, Bully, was released in March after several years in which the rap superstar and tabloid regular’s life spiraled into chaos. In 2021, the rapper and his wife, Kim Kardashian, filed for divorce. Then, after an initial rash of antisemitic posts on Twitter in late 2022, West and his lifestyle company, Yeezy, saw the termination of sponsorships and partnerships with Vogue, Universal Music Group, CAA, Balenciaga, Gap and Adidas.
Since then, lawsuits have surrounded the artist, ranging from alleged harassment of staff to nonpayment of a contractor working on a California mansion he and his second wife, Bianca Censori, were looking to redesign. New antisemitic remarks bubbled up again in 2024 while he repeatedly apologized for them, culminating in an about-face in the form of a Wall Street Journal ad in which he apologized for all of his antisemitic and pro-Hitler remarks while professing love for the Jewish people. The apology was met with a lukewarm reaction from a public that had watched the rapper’s troubling antics and hateful statements for years. Still, the tour kicked off to sold-out audiences in the U.S. as dates were announced across Europe and beyond.
In April, West’s headlining nights at the annual Wireless Festival in London were canceled when he was denied a visa; this led to the cancellation of the entire 2026 festival. A show in France was subsequently postponed, and a gig at the Pulse of Gaia Festival at the RCF Arena in Reggio Emilia in July was denied by a local prefect. Yet his concerts in Turkey, the Netherlands, Georgia, Albania, Portugal and Kazakhstan have seen him perform in front of thousands.
A representative for West did not comment on Friday when The Hollywood Reporter asked about the canceled concerts.