When your headliner angrily walks offstage before the show is over, the crowd might be the problem.
That seemed to be the case at the Rolling Loud music festival Friday in Miami, Florida. Rapper Kid Cudi found himself bombarded by items thrown onstage by audience members and walked off in the middle of his set after warning them to stop, according to Variety.
“Yo, I will walk off this stage if you all throw one more fucking thing up here, I will leave, I will leave right now,” said Cudi. “Throw one more fucking thing on this stage and I’ll walk off, I’m not fucking playing. I’m not fucking playing, you will ruin it for everybody.”
“I’ll fucking leave if I get hit with one more fucking thing, if I see one more fucking thing on this fucking stage, I’m leaving. Don’t fuck with me,” he said.
At least one audience member decided to double down, however, and launched a water bottle toward Cudi after he threatened to leave. The rapper subsequently dropped his microphone and walked offstage to both the cheers and chagrin of a polarized crowd, according to Rolling Stone.
The incident went viral after the person who threw that final water bottle posted footage of the act on Twitter.
Cudi was picked to replace Kanye West as a headliner for the festival after the “Donda 2” rapper pulled out less than a week before the show — only for him to make an appearance.
“We spent months working with him and his team on the performance,” Rolling Loud co-founders Tariq Cherif and Matt Zingler said in a statement at the time.
“Unfortunately, Ye has decided that he will no longer be performing,” their statement continued. This is the first time a headliner has ever pulled off our show and though we don’t take it lightly, we wish him the best.”
West, who legally changed his name to Ye, emerged wearing a mask covering his entire face during rapper Lil Durk’s set.
While it remains unclear whether West did so deliberately to spite Cudi, he partially performed “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1” from his “Life of Pablo” album, which contains predominant vocals from Cudi.
The two rappers, who were once close friends and longtime collaborators, had a recent spat on social media. West was upset that Cudi was friends with former “Saturday Night Live” star Pete Davidson, who is dating his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian.
“Just so everyone knows Cudi will not be on Donda because he’s friends with you know who,” wrote West in a since-deleted Instagram post.
Cudi ultimately brushed this off by calling West a “dinosaur” in the comments of his post. He also tweeted that he didn’t mind being cast out of his circle because “God opens the door so the wrong people can exit ur life.”
