Neil Young has announced that he will not perform at Glastonbury this year, saying he believes the BBC’s involvement in the festival means it is “now under corporate control”.

The 79-year-old Canadian musican wrote a letter on Tuesday on his website, Neil Young Archives, detailing why he and his band the Chrome Hearts were backing out of the music festival, held each year at Worthy Farm in Somerset.

“The Chrome Hearts and I were looking forward to playing Glastonbury, one of my all time favorite outdoor gigs,” Young wrote. “We were told that BBC was now a partner in Glastonbury and wanted us to do a lot of things in a way we were not interested in. It seems Glastonbury is now under corporate control and is not the way I remember it being.”

The BBC has partnered with the festival since 1997.

The Guardian has contacted the Glastonbury festival and the BBC for comment.

Young had yet to be announced as an act at this year’s Glastonbury, though a performance with the Chrome Hearts had been rumoured. Other acts thought to be performing at the 2025 festival, which will take place on 27–29 June, are Olivia Rodrigo, Rihanna, Eminem, Sam Fender and Ed Sheeran.

Rocker Rod Stewart is so far the only officially confirmed act, returning 23 years after his last Glastonbury performance. Nile Rodgers also accidentally confirmed that he will be performing with Chic during an acceptance speech at the Rolling Stone awards in November.

Young last performed at Glastonbury in 2009 as a headline act on the Pyramid stage, but only portions of his two-hour set were broadcast on the BBC. In response to criticism from Young’s fans, the BBC said it had “spent the last couple of months” negotiating with Young’s management about how much of his set they could broadcast.

“Neil Young’s career has been conducted on his own terms,” the broadcaster said in a statement at the time. “Neil’s management agreed to let TV and radio broadcast five songs as they watched and listened to his performance. They believe in the live event and retaining its mystery and that of their artist.”

Young was also booked to play Glastonbury in 1997, but pulled out after cutting his finger while making a ham sandwich just before the start of his European tour, saying at the time: “I’d have eaten the thing in one piece if I’d known that cutting it in half would jeopardise the tour. It’s macaroni and cheese from now on.”

Glastonbury’s headline acts tend to be announced in March, while the full lineup is usually revealed in June. Tickets for the 2025 festival sold out in just 32 minutes.

Accounts filed with Companies House revealed that the festival nearly doubled its annual profits in the 12 months leading up to March 2024. It donated £5.2m to charities, and paid £1.3m to charities and local groups in exchange for site services including volunteer programmes.

That year the festival also spent £3.7m on new land acquisition, potentially signalling plans for future expansion beyond the current capacity of 210,000.

Founder Michael Eavis, 89, transferred his shares in the festival to his daughter Emily, who runs the event. In a statement to the Financial Times, a festival spokesperson said: “Having entered his 90th year, Michael Eavis is … proceeding with his long-held plan to pass control of the festival over to his daughter, Emily. The past few years have already seen Emily take over the day-to-day organisation of the event, and this latest change is simply another part of that process.”

Last year, Glastonbury was headlined by Dua Lipa, Coldplay and SZA. The festival will then likely take a fallow year in 2026 to allow the land to recover.

Last year, Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis told the BBC that fallow years are “important because it gives the land a rest, and it gives the cows a chance to be out for longer and reclaim their land. And it gives everyone time to switch off. And I think it’s quite good not to be seen to be cashing in.”

• Neil Young
• Glastonbury 2025
• Glastonbury festival
• BBC
• Music festivals
• news