Kanye West is already a very wealthy man, but his bailing on Coachella left an enormous amount of money on the table … millions and millions of dollars.
Sources with direct knowledge of the deal tell us … Ye’s deal was $8 million for his 2-weekend-long Sunday headlining gig. We’re told in addition to that, Coachella was dishing out $500,000 in production costs.
However, while Kanye and his team only alerted Coachella festival that he was backing out at the last minute, it appears he hadn’t been serious about taking the Coachella stage for quite some time, if ever.
Our Kanye sources say Ye really hadn’t seriously rehearsed for a performance that some artists take months to prepare for. We’re told he did have a team in place that was actively talking to Coachella producers, but there was still a ton of work to be done.
We’re told the Coachella producers were caught completely off guard, with no plan B.
TMZ broke the story — Kanye’s spot has been filled by The Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia. Our sources say The Weeknd will earn the same amount as Kanye.
Page Six was first to report the money.
The festival is set to kick off a week from Friday, with more than 100,000 people expected to hit Indio, CA for what has already been a dramatic build-up to one of the biggest music festivals in the world.