Kanye West’s Australian visa cancelled

Australia’s Jewish community has welcomed the revelation that controversial US rapper’s visa to this country was cancelled after he released a song paying homage to Adolf Hitler.

American rapper Kanye West had his Australian visa cancelled after he released a song paying homage to Adolf Hitler, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke has revealed.

Mr Burke said Mr West, who now goes by Ye, had his Australia visa cancelled after releasing a song titled Heil Hitler on May 8.

The rapper, who was previously married to Kim Kardashian, was not seeking a visa to hold concerts in Australia but Mr Burke said officials looked at his “lower level” visa and still revoked it on the grounds that it was promoting Nazism.

Mr West has been married to Australian Bianca Censori since late 2022.

It is believed Mr West, and Melbourne native Ms Censori met when she started working at his company, Yeezy, in November 2020 as an architectural designer.

Ye with his Australian wife Bianca Censori the 2025 Grammy Awards. 

The pair have also become controversial for Censori fashion statements.

“We have enough challenges in Australia without directly importing hatred,” Mr Burke said.

“Once Kanye West released the song Heil Hitler, my department officers had a look at his visa and decided he was no longer eligible to come to Australia under the Migration Act.”

In an interview on the Today Show in 2023, Minister for Education Jason Clare publicly opposed the idea of allowing Kanye West into the country.

“I don’t know if he’s applied for a visa yet, but google it and you’ll see that he seems like he’s a pretty big fan of a person who killed 6 million Jewish people last century,” Mr Clare said.

“People like that who’ve applied for visas to get into Australia in the past have been rejected. I expect that if he does apply he would have to go through the same process and answer the same questions that they did.

Ye leaves the US federal court during the trial of Sean "Diddy" Combs in New York on June 13. Picture: AP

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Alex Ryvchin has authored a book about the singer’s commentary on the Jewish community.

He welcomed the government’s decision to cancel his visa.

“Kanye West’s use of mass media and an enormous platform to relentlessly attack the Jewish people completely trashed his reputation and revealed a malignant character,“ he said.

“It can be argued that his social media and podcast campaign in which he revived every antisemitic slurs and myth imaginable fundamentally endangered Jews around the world and brought legitimacy to the expressions of hatred that are now commonplace in the music industry, the arts and wider society.

“His social media statement in May declaring he was ‘done with antisemitism’ has not undone the immeasurable harm he caused. The Minister acted correctly in our view in denying the visa.”

Originally published as Kanye West’s Australian visa cancelled