The crazy request Kanye West had on his tour rider
Kanye West is well-known for being outspoken, so it’s no surprise that he gets whatever he wants on tour — no matter how crazy the request. Although he’s asked for many wild things in the past, one of the biggest came in 2016.
At the time, Ye was on the road for 41 shows on his Saint Pablo Tour in support of his seventh studio album, The Life of Pablo. Following the success of his LP, which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, he grossed $52.8 million while performing across North America between August and November that year.
According to TMZ, Kanye requested alcoholic slushy machines backstage during the run of dates. One machine dispensed frozen Hennessy and coke, with another pumping out frozen Grey Goose and lemonade; the latter was apparently put in place for his then-wife, Kim Kardashian. The machines were ordered for his two shows at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, and went on to be the standard at every show on the tour from that point onwards.
During an interview with GQ in 2020, Kanye West admitted he was a functioning alcoholic and recalled the moment he decided to stop drinking. “One day I was in my office working on the couture collection, and there was some Grey Goose in the fridge and I was just going to get a daytime drink, and I looked and thought, ‘Devil, you’re not going to beat me today,'” he said. “That one statement is like a tattoo.”
He continued, “I haven’t had a drink since I realised I needed to take it day by day, but I never owned up, or was even told, ‘Hey, you’re a functioning alcoholic.’ People have called me a crazy person, people have called me everything—but not a functioning alcoholic. And I would be drinking orange juice and Grey Goose in the morning.”
Kanye claimed that his alcohol addiction stemmed from his disappointment about being snubbed from various award shows. “It’s good that we found out about all of those awards shows that partially led me to alcoholism. Whistle been blown, you know?” he said.
“Imagine My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Watch the Throne [being eligible] the same year and neither of them being nominated for Album of the Year. Imagine doing The Life of Pablo and driving down the road and never hearing none of those songs on the radio and your wife and your daughter are in the car.”
Despite his attempt at giving up alcohol, Kanye claimed he was drinking Hennessy when he sent out his antisemitic tweet that threatened to go “death con 3 on Jewish people” in 2022. He explained to Candace Owens on her Candace podcast, “I was drinking when I put up the DEFCON tweet. You wanna know what alcohol I had inside me? Hennessy. It turns us grey. The demons [come out].”