Kanye West stormed off stage only 13 minutes into his set at the closing ceremony of the Pan Am Games.
The Yeezus singer had only performed three tracks for the crowd on Sunday night before the sound cut out mid way through his song Touch the Sky. The 38-year-old threw his microphone in the air and abruptly left the stage, leaving officials confused if it was part of his performance.
“The volume that he performs at is so high, it might have been what affected the sound system, but it also might be something his team planned all along, so you just never know because he's such a creative guy," Pan Am Games CEO Saad Rafi told The Canadian Press.
While his equipment malfunctioned on stage, it reportedly kept working on the television broadcast. Organisers at the event in Toronto, Canada later tweeted that Kanye’s performance ended because of a “technical error” and thanked people for supporting it.
Kanye was the last in a starstudded line-up to perform for the crowd which also included Pitbull and Serena Ryder.
The Pan Am Games is a sporting event held among athletes from nations of the Americas, every four years in the year before the Summer Olympic Games.
The organisers’ decision to have the Stronger star as a headliner was seen as controversial by many supporters of the event.
More than 50,000 Canadians signing a petition before Sunday’s closing ceremony to replace him with a performer who was more local. Drake or Nelly Furtado were names that were seen by many as a better choice for the closing ceremony at Torontos Rogers Centre.
