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Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis reveals she received death threats after booking Kanye West



Glastonbury co-organiser Emily Eavis has shared how she received horrific death threats for booking Kanye West in 2015.

In an extract from a new book, published by The Guardian, Eavis recalled how securing the rapper to headline in 2015 garnered negative attention.

Writing in Glastonbury 50, she explained: “As soon as we announced that [West] was playing, a petition sprang up – started by someone who had never been to Glastonbury – saying Kanye shouldn’t play because he wasn’t right for us.” 

She added: “Again, we had to reassure the people around the artist that it would all work, that these stories don’t reflect the attitude of people coming to the festival – or in the UK, for that matter. It’s just a load of hot air.”

Emily Eavis recalls the reaction she got from booking Kanye West(Rex Features)

Discussing how “extreme” things got, Eavis remembered how she became “an obvious target” for online abuse and revealed that her life was threatened as a result.

“You can’t please everyone, and the haters tend to be the ones shouting the loudest,” she said. “I actually had death threats in 2015, which seemed a little harsh – especially given that we had booked what we considered to be one of the most exciting and innovative artists of his generation. But it worked out for Kanye in the end.”

She described the 42-year-old as “ballsy” for rapping to the 100,000 crowd from cherry picker while holding “on for dear life.”

Glastonbury 50 will be released tomorrow (Thursday, October 31) and also sees Emily’s father Michael Eavis, co-creator of Glastonbury, telling the story of how the festival has come from its humble beginnings to the most in-demand event on the music calendar. 

“Working on this book has been a fantastic project for me and my dad in the fallow year and in the build-up to this year’s Festival,” Emily said of the project. 

Meanwhile, West’s much-anticipated Jesus Is King album was released last week.

It had been set to drop at midnight on October 25, but West later revealed it still wasn’t quite ready.

At 5pm that day Friday the album suddenly arrived on all major streaming services.

West, who has recently confirmed his conversion to Christianity, had tweeted to explain that the delay was due to the mixing on the tracks Everything We Need, Follow God and Water.

He wrote on Twitter: “To my fans, Thank you for being loyal & patient.

“We are specifically fixing mixes on ‘Everything We Need’ ‘Follow God’ & ‘Water’.

“We not going to sleep until this album is out!”



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