Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has warned Kanye West that he must be fully vaccinated in order to perform in the country.
His warning came after media reports suggested the rapper, 44, was planning to play a string of concerts in Australia in March to promote his new album ‘Donda’.
Tennis champion Novak Djokovic’s hopes for an Australian Open title were dashed when a court upheld the government’s decision to cancel his visa over Covid rules and his unvaccinated status.
In an interview last year, Mr West said he had received one dose of the Covid vaccine. However, he told Forbes in 2020 that getting jabbed was the “the mark of the beast” and his current vaccination status is not known.
Mr Morrison’s remarks followed a report on Friday in the Sydney Morning Herald, citing industry sources, that said Mr West planned to play stadium concerts in Australia in March.
Quizzed on whether the rapper would be able to perform, Mr Morrison said: “It doesn’t matter who you are, they are the rules.
“Follow the rules, you can come. You don’t follow the rules, you can’t.”
Hinting at the Djokovic fiasco, he added: “They apply to everybody, as you have seen recently”.
Australia, one of the nations most heavily vaccinated against Covid, has been battling an explosive wave of infections in the past month driven by the fast-spreading Omicron variant, with about 2 million cases recorded.
Until then, it had just 400,000 cases since the pandemic first hit nearly two years ago.
On Saturday, 97 people died, after Friday’s pandemic record of 98 deaths. Health officials in several states said, however, that hospital admissions were either plateauing or showing signs of a decline.
Mr West released his most recent album, Donda, in July.
