Barring any more cancellations, Ye is scheduled to perform in the countries of Georgia, Albania, Portugal and Spain this summer, as well as in Florida. A week ago, he performed in front of more than 100,000 people in Istanbul. In April, the rapper performed in Los Angeles, his first full live show in the United States since 2021.
For Gideon Querido van Frank, who works for the Center for Information and Documentation Israel, the Dutch group that organized the demonstration on Saturday, the fact that most of the protesters were Jewish was disappointing. “Where are all my friends from before?” he said. “I feel lonely.”
For his part, Ye had taken out a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal in January, apologizing for his antisemitic actions. It was his second such apology since 2023. In 2025, during a four-month period that Ye described in the Journal ad as “a manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior,” he had taken back that apology.
“I am not a Nazi or an antisemite,” he wrote in The Wall Street Journal, attributing his behavior to untreated bipolar I disorder, during a time when he had stopped taking medication.
Many fans in Arnhem on Saturday appeared to agree that Ye’s bipolar disorder was to blame for his antisemitic behavior. The merchandise for sale included a $58 T-shirt that employed a four-letter expletive to denounce bipolar disorder.
“The atmosphere is good,” said one fan, Melanie van der Velden, 20, who added that most people seemed to have shown up to support Ye’s music, not his past behavior.
“I don’t think people are thinking about it,” she said.
