Kanye West walks off stage at the Pan Am closing closing ceremonies on Sunday.  We see from a distance a tall man dressed mainly in a full-blown blue shirt and blue jeans in full stride about to walk off stage. He is dwarfed by giant blue and white wall.

Kanye West walks off stage at the Pan Am closing closing ceremonies on Sunday.
Photo Credit: CP Photo / Darren Calabrese

Kanye West leaves controversy in his wake

Boy! Can that rapper guy Kanye West stir up the contro, eh?

When it was first announced that West would headline the closing ceremonies at the Pan Am Games in Toronto, a lot of Canadians were, well, miffed.

An anti-Kanye petition gathered about 55,000 signatures, mainly from people who said their tax dollars should go to a Canadian headliner and that West did not represent the values of the Games.

Organizers stood their ground.

So there was West Sunday night rockin’ the Rogers Centre.

Then, Yikes! His mic cuts out.

After trying for a while to fix the faulty mic, West walks off stage. He did not return.

His exit is followed by lots of groans and lots of chants of “Kanye! Kanye!”

To no avail. But Kanye is gonzo.

Once again, a lot of Canadians were, well, miffed, wondering about where their tax dollars were going.

Pan Am Games organizers reacted quickly, saying taxpayers did not foot West’s bill.

Pan Am Games CEO Saad Rafi said performance fees for West and the two other performers — Canadian howler Serena Ryder and Miami pop-rapper Pitbull — were covered by the concert promotion company Live Nation, which sponsored the Games.

The Games organizing committee, Mr. Rafi said, only contributed to expenses such as backing bands, makeup artists and transporting artists’ equipment from the airport.

For good measure, organizers did a bit of wondering themselves–some saying they were not sure they whether the rapper’s mic problems and abrupt exit were genuine or planned.

For the record: Most of the Pan Am Games $2.5-billion budget came from the federal, provincial and Toronto governments. Ticket sales were expected to cover about $40-million.

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