Kanye West’s fall from grace has been precipitous. His regular hate-fuelled rants on social media where he has, amongst other claims, declared his love of Hitler, described slavery as ‘a choice’ and said he has ‘dominion’ over his wife Bianca Censori, have long alarmed fans and followers around the world.

Aside from irreparable reputational damage, though, West has faced few material consequences for this behaviour. That stood to change when his recent trip to Australia was cancelled.

Australia’s home affairs minister Tony Burke revealed that his department cancelled West’s valid visa due to the fact he released a song called ‘Heil Hitler’ at the start of May. The song has been banned on most platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube, but this is the first time he has been denied entry to a country because of it. It is unclear why West was planning to travel to Australia, but it could be to visit the friends and family of Censori, who is from Melbourne.

Burke revealed that he cancelled West’s visa during a discussion about the visa cancellation of another individual over Islamophobic comments they had made. ‘If someone argued that antisemitism was rational,’ he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ‘I would not let them come here.’

‘[West] has been coming to Australia for a long time… and he’s made a lot of offensive comments. But my officials looked at it again once he released the Heil Hitler song, and he no longer has a valid visa in Australia.’

It is unclear whether this is a permanent ban, but Burke added that visa applications are assessed each time they are submitted, as stated by the law. Burke was then asked if the rapper’s visa ban would be sustainable and said, ‘I think that what’s not sustainable is to import hatred. We have enough problems in this country already without deliberately importing bigotry.’

When West’s song was first released in May it was viewed by millions of people within 24 hours and formed part of his album, WW3, which features a series of similarly concerning songs. However, shortly after its release, West announced he was ‘done with antisemitism’ and released a new version of the song called ‘Halleluja’, which replaced lyrics about Nazism with those about Christianity.

However, this gear shift is of little interest or reassurance to anyone, least of all the Jewish community, because earlier this year West identified as a Nazia. He also retracted an apology he offered

In addition to West’s flagrant antisemitism and song about Hitler, he also identified as a Nazi earlier this year and retracted a previous apology he made to the Jewish community. In October 2022, West posted on X to say he was ‘going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE’ and wrote, ‘You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda’. The posts prompted Adidas to cut ties with West and end his lucrative Yeezy footwear deal, condemning his comments as ‘unacceptable, hateful and dangerous’. Gap, which also partnered with West, stopped stocking his affiliated products.

Later that year, during an interview with the right-wing commentator Alex Jones, West said, ‘I see good things about Hitler. Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler. [Nazis] did good things, too. There’s a lot of things that I love about Hitler.’

He was almost blocked from visiting Australia following these comments too because of the ‘awful’ comments he made about the Holocaust, which were condemned by education minister Jason Clare.

In 2023, West published an apology on Instagram to say: ‘I sincerely apologise to the Jewish community. It was not my intention to hurt or demean, and I deeply regret any pain I may have caused. I am committed to starting with myself and learning from this experience.’ This is the apology he retracted earlier this year.

As well as public condemnation and having his Australian visa application rejected, West is facing custody issues with his ex-wife Kim Kardashian, with whom he shares four children, North, Saint, Chicago and Psalm. West currently has visitation rights of his children, all of whom live primarily with Kardashian. Despite declining to comment on the situation where possible for the sake of their children, Kardashian has faced mounting pressure to condemn her ex-husband and has reportedly been rethinking about filing for sole custody.

She also opened up about the changes in West in the past decade on a recent episode of The Kardashians. ‘I’ve been there,’ she told her sister Khloe, ‘when you don’t foresee something happening that really changes a person’s personality and then they’re not the same person and you can’t ever get that person back, but you can’t live with the new person. I get it.’

This week West has posted about an upcoming world tour, which will theoretically see him perform in China on 12 July, Slovakia on 18-20 July, South Korea on 26 July and Brazil on 29 November. It is unclear whether these countries will follow Australia’s visa protocol.