A North London music festival, the Wireless Festival in Finsbury Park, faced backlash that led to its cancellation today, April 7, after inviting Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, to headline.
Prior to its cancellation, several sponsors backed out of the festival, including Pepsi, Diageo and Johnny Walker. It faced criticism from everyone from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to Jewish “Friends” actor and activist David Schwimmer.
Schwimmer took to social media this Monday, before the festival’s cancellation, to thank the sponsors who backed out of Wireless, and to explain why he doesn’t believe Ye deserves to be forgiven for his years of antisemitism, despite his public apology earlier this year in the Wall Street Journal, which blamed his past statements on a health condition.
Ye’s years of public Jew hatred, Schwimmer asserts in the post, has real-life consequences, and he believes the rapper hasn’t truly made amends for it.
“For years, Ye used his considerable celebrity to promote hate and violence against Jews, spreading antisemitic lies and stereotypes to his 33 million followers — more than twice the number of Jewish people alive today,” Schwimmer wrote. He reminded his followers how just a year ago, Ye released a song called “Heil Hitler,” sold a swastika t-shirt on his website through a Super Bowl ad and claimed he was a Nazi while threatening to kill Jews.
“Ye’s words and actions the last few years have caused incalculable, irreparable damage,” Schwimmer rightfully determines in his searing post. “He has fueled worldwide hatred and inspired violence against Jews everywhere, and his erratic behavior has repeatedly shown he can’t be trusted.”
He called Ye’s apology simply “words on paper,” a way to advertise an upcoming tour, and not something that could really make up for “years of abuse.” Forgiveness, the “Goosebumps” actor believes, would take much more. Removing “Heil Hitler” from streaming platforms and denouncing the song would be one step, Schwimmer suggests. He also proposes meeting with Jewish leaders and artists and donating profits from the festival to Jewish organizations in the UK, where, Schwimmer writes, “attacks against Jews, synagogues and Jewish businesses are among the highest ever recorded.”
Until Ye truly builds back trust with the Jewish community and all his fans, Schwimmer writes, “he should not be granted a platform to perform.” Schwimmer also called out the musicians who performed with Ye at his first U.S. show in five years at SoFi Stadium earlier this month, including Lauryn Hill, Travis Scott, CeeLoo Green and Don Toliver, all who never called out Ye’s antisemitism and were happy to share the stage with him.
This isn’t Schwimmer’s first time speaking out against antisemitism. Throughout the years, the actor and director, who was raised Jewish in New York and Los Angeles, has been a vocal advocate for the Jewish community. At an ADL conference last year, he urged his fellow Hollywood stars to speak out against antisemitism.
Schwimmer has shared that his own speaking out has come with a cost: “I’ve been attacked and threatened by people I’ve never met. I’ve been abandoned by people I thought were friends and by organizations I thought were allies,” he revealed, but added that he “also found amazing moments of meaning and solidarity.”
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