Kanye West Glastonbury Set Crashed: Was It Staged?
Kanye West got a taste of his own medicine during his headlining set at the Glastonbury Music Festival on Saturday night. West, who’s known for bum-rushing other people’s acceptance speeches, had his performance interrupted by Lee Nelson, the alter-ego of British comedian Simon Broadkin. Lee wore a shirt with the word “Lee-zus” on it, a nod to Kanye West’s most recent album Yeezus, the Mirror reports.
The British comedian has a history of crashing stages. Last year, Nelson, in the form of alter-ego Jason Bent, tried to join the English soccer team by pretending to be a player. In 2013, he tried to join Manchester by popping up on the pitch during team practice.
Nelson took to Twitter to give his reasons for crashing West’s performance.
“Some people were saying Kanye shouldn’t headline Glastonbury,” he wrote on Twitter. “So I thought I’d give him a hand.”
The news of the Lee’s performance interruption lit up social media and some people had one question: Was it staged?
Oh Christ was it lee nelson????? That’s staged then isn’t it surely how would they let him on the stage
— ZOE LONDON ? (@zoelondondj) June 27, 2015
A lot of people were perplexed by West’s apparently calm reaction to his set being crashed. Although he’s been known to react aggressively to people getting too close to him, in this case, all he did was call for his security and started the song over. To some, this seems like the composed reaction of someone who was in on the joke.
One also wonders how Lee was able to get so up close and personal with an A-List star like Kanye West during such a high-profile gig.
Sources told the UK’s Mirror newspaper that Lee was probably already backstage long before West got on stage at 10 p.m. According to these sources, anyone could talk their way backstage without a pass. There’s also some speculation that Kanye was probably using Glastonbury Festival security, who may have been less strict that West’s regular personal bodyguards.
Could this be West’s middle finger to the “haters” who opposed his selection as the headliner at Glastonbury? The Kanye Glastonbury festival headliner started off in controversy, with some festival goers disagreeing that his act was suitable for the setting. But based on some early of the reviews of the show, it looks like Kanye West proved them wrong.
[Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images]
