Kanye West Walked Away From $8.5 Million Coachella Paycheck By Quitting Festival — Report

Kanye West was reportedly going to receive a whopping $8 million plus $500,000 in production costs for his gig at Coachella, which has now been replaced with Swedish House Mafia and The Weeknd.

Kanye West, 44, is one of the biggest and richest rappers in the world, but he still left a lot of money behind when walking away from his upcoming Coachella gig. The talented artist was apparently going to be paid $8 million for the headlining performance and Coachella was also going to pay an additional $500,000 for production costs, according to sources at Page Six. The impressive amount still wasn’t able to hold Ye down though, as he cancelled his appearance less than two weeks before he was set to take the big stage.

Sources also told TMZ that although Kanye booked the festival, he still hadn’t seriously rehearsed for it, even though many artists spend weeks or months rehearsing once they know they’re going to be a part of the annual event. The insiders said that his team was talking to Coachella producers but he still had a lot of work to do at the time of his cancellation, which came without warning.

Shortly after the news spread that Kanye dropped out, Coachella announced that Swedish House Mafia and The Weeknd are teaming up to replace him as the headliner on April 17 and April 24. They will join other previously announced headliners Billie Eilish and Harry Styles for the epic music-filled nights. Despite the big change regarding Kanye, it’s not clear why he dropped out and he has yet to announce a public statement about it. HollywoodLife reached out to reps for Kanye, Swedish House Mafia, The Weekend and Coachella but have yet to receive a response.

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The festival, which takes place in Indio, CA, is planning on kicking off on April 15 and more than 100,000 people are expected to attend. There are several other artists set to take the stage as well and the highly-anticipated event is one of the biggest music festivals in the U.S.

When Kanye’s not making headlines for his music career, he’s doing so for his dating life. The “Jesus Walks” creator was recently spotted bringing new girlfriend Chaney Jones to meet his family during a surprise gathering for a birthday party. The gorgeous gal showed up in one of the videos taken at the big bash and she happily greeted Ye’s loving kin.