Kanye West’s Australian Visa Revoked Over ‘Heil Hitler’ Song

Topline

Rapper and one-time billionaire Kanye West, who has lost brand deals and hundreds of millions of dollars for spewing antisemitic rhetoric online, on Wednesday had his Australian visa revoked weeks after releasing a song called “Heil Hitler” that has been banned on most streaming platforms.

Kanye West attends the Anonymous Club fashion show during Berlin Fashion Week July 1, 2024.

Getty Images

Key Facts

Tony Burke, Australian home affairs minister, said in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Wednesday that West “no longer has a valid visa” in the country after immigration officials recently reassessed his application.

West, whose wife Bianca Censori is Australian, has frequently traveled to the nation to visit family and has “made a lot of offensive comments,” Burke said, but the release of the “Heil Hitler” track on May 8 prompted another look at his immigration status.

Whether or not West is permanently banned from Australia is unclear, but Burke said if West is “going to have a song and promote that sort of Nazism—we don’t need that in Australia.”

The decision comes two years after Australian education minister Jason Clare first suggested West’s “awful” anti-Jewish rhetoric could disqualify him from entry to the country.

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Crucial Quote

“We have enough problems in this country already without deliberately importing bigotry,” Burke said.

Key Background

West, who has legally changed his name to Ye, released a song called “Heil Hitler” on May 8—the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. The chorus includes the line, “All my n—s Nazis, n—a, heil Hitler” and ends with a lengthy sample from a Hitler speech. Spotify, Apple Music,YouTube and other platforms quickly pulled the song from streaming, but it gained millions of views on X, the platform owned by Elon Musk, in the days after its release. In now-deleted tweets two weeks after the song’s release, West declared on X he was “done with antisemitism” and asked God to “forgive me for the pain I’ve caused.” He then released a version of “Heil Hitler” called “Hallelujah” that replaced earlier references to Nazism with references to Christianity.

Contra

Conservative podcast host and media personality Joe Rogan has defended West’s “Heil Hitler” song, calling it “catchy.” He then said that banning the song was to “support” what Kanye was trying to say about Jewish people in the first place: “if you talk about Jewish people, that they’re going to remove you from everything,” Rogan said. “Remove you from banking, which is what he’s saying. They run everything.”

Tangent

West has been publicly touting antisemitic ideas since a conversation with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson was leaked in October 2022. He then made a bizarre series of public appearances—including wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt—and news leaked that he’d wanted to name his 2018 album after Adolf Hitler. Several anonymous sources told reporters he had an “obsession” with the Nazi leader, and six of his former employees told NBC News he’d made several pro-Hitler and pro-Nazi remarks. In the wake of his comments, West lost his business partnerships with Balenciaga, Adidas, Gap and Footlocker. His wax figure was removed from Madame Tussauds, the Texas A&M football team stopped using the song “Power” as its entrance song and West was dropped from the Creative Artists Agency. Earlier this year, West posted to X that he was “NEVER APOLOGIZING FOR MY JEWISH COMMENTS” and “IM A NAZI.” He then ran a Super Bowl ad in the Los Angeles area directing people to yeezy.com, where a $20 plain white T-shirt with a black swastika printed on the front was the only item available for sale. Shopify ultimately removed the store from its e-commerce platform and 33&West, a Los Angeles talent agency, dropped West as a client.

Forbes Valuation

West was once considered a billionaire, largely due to the Yeezy clothing and footwear line with Adidas that accounted for $1.5 billion of his net worth, but he lost his status when the partnership ended. Forbes estimated in 2022 that West is worth $400 million thanks to his real estate, value of his music catalog, stake in ex-wife Kim Kardashian’s shapewear firm, Skims, and other assets. West earlier this year claimed to be a billionaire again, but we have not changed our valuation.