Glastonbury 2015: Emily Eavis denies reports of Kanye West's massive lineup

'His is smaller than average for a headliner,' she revealed

Kanye West headlines Glastonbury on Saturday 27 June (Getty Images)

Emily Eavis is well known for keeping schtum when it comes to Glastonbury rumours. But the festival organiser has just taken the (nearly) unprecedented step of speaking out about reports concerning Kanye West prior to his controversial headline performance.

She has dashed cold water over reports that West brought an entourage to Glastonbury so large that other performers were forced to scale theirs down.

Tweeting just before the Yeezus rapper was due to perform on the Pyramid Stage, Eavis said: “So excited about Kanye. (No idea where these 'big guestlist' stories are coming from - his is smaller than average for a headliner!)”

However, Felix White of indie rock group The Maccabees, who performed on the Other Stage tonight, told the BBC earlier today that band members were allowed "only one guest each this time" as opposed to previous years.

"I've not got that many other friends who want to come but I'm just making a point!" he said. "We were told that this viewing platform's been set up just for Kanye so he's got hundreds and hundreds of guests apparently."

Kanye, who is married to reality television star Kim Kardashian who is expecting their second child, arrived at the Somerset festival by helicopter this afternoon.

Eavis has previously spoken out in defence of Kanye (the first time she has been forced to wade into a situation like this) after more than 130,000 people signed a petition calling for his Saturday night headline slot to be replaced by a rock band.

Writing in a Guardian blog post Eavis said she "felt compelled to respond" to the "enormous amount of media coverage from all corners of the globe" concerning Kanye.

"We think the story this year should not be 'Why is Kanye coming?' but 'How amazing is it that Kanye is coming?' One of the world's biggest superstars and a music legend, always interesting, never boring.

"He has agreed to play a festival where headliners get paid a fraction of their normal rate in support of Oxfam, Water Aid and Greenpeace as well as thousands of other worthy causes. We think that's pretty great."

BBC bosses are apparently preparing contingency plans for their coverage of Kanye’s performance tonight after ITV had to bleep out the majority of his Brit Awards routine due repeated profanity.