Stats about the removal of Peloton classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.

Report: Peloton Removes Most Classes Featuring Songs & Music by Kanye West

Peloton appears to have removed the majority of classes featuring music by Kanye West from the platform.

Update – Peloton had another small purge related to Kanye West songs that took place the morning of December 9th, 2022. This seemed to remove some of the remaining classes that were still left with Kanye West songs on the platform. We won’t be providing another full breakdown – just know that the same instructors who had classes removed in the first two rounds of the purges were most impacted by this one as well. All the data & numbers below are from the first two purges (Dec 6 & Dec 7th), and don’t include numbers from the purge on Dec 9th.

In case you missed it, we shared yesterday that Peloton had performed a fairly significant class purge overnight, resulting more than 500 classes being removed from the on demand library. At the time it was unclear what the purge was related to, as the classes removed varied with no immediately identifiable pattern.

Some members speculated that the initial purge was related to Kanye West’s music. As a reminder, Peloton announced at the end of October that they would no longer play West’s music in any new classes on the platform – but didn’t mention removal of previous classes. Yet, after the first overnight purge you could still enter West’s name in the search bar and see over 1,000 class results. West also showed up as a musical artist when doing the search.

However, yesterday afternoon there was a second purge. Now, West no longer shows up as an artist search result, the way other artists do.

Beyoncé artist search result showing her name in the "Music Artists" section.
Beyoncé artist search result showing her name in the “Music Artists” section.

There are still a handful of classes that come up when you enter his name, but none of the classes appear to actually include his music. Although the majority of Peloton classes containing Kanye West songs seem to be removed, we have still seen reports of a handful of classes that remain – even if they don’t show up in the search results.

Kanye West artist search result showing no results for "Music Artists" section.
Kanye West artist search result showing no results for “Music Artists” section.

It’s likely the first purge was the start of the removal of his classes, but for whatever reason, it was done in two parts. It just wasn’t possible to be sure at the time of the first purge this is what was taking place due to so many classes with his music having remained at the time.

As is typical with these class purges, Peloton did not pre-announce the removal, or make any statement as to what or why the removal took place.

Overall, more than 1,000 classes appear to have now been removed from the Peloton platform (presumably all containing songs by Kanye West) as a result of both purges yesterday.

The chart below shows a breakdown of what was removed by class type.

Stats about the removal of Peloton classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.
Stats about the removal of Peloton classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.

Note that this chart, and all others in this article, are a combination of all removals that took place yesterday. They include any removals that were mentioned in the first purge yesterday morning. All numbers are approximate – there is a chance the counts are +-1 for some instructors. Keep in mind that the stats and overview only include counts and % of the generally available on-demand library. Any counts included do not include classes that were only available through programs.

This class purge appears to have had an impact on a wide number of classes. For example, some instructor’s premiere classes are no longer available. In addition, this purge removed classes from some of the Splits programs, the Power Zone programs, and more.

We’ll now take a look at the number of classes removed for each discipline, and which instructors were most heavily impacted.

Total Number of Peloton Cycling Classes Removed in December 2022 Kanye West Peloton Class Purge

After both purges, around 601 cycling classes were removed, which amounts to about 3.9% of the on demand library for cycling.

Stats about the removal of Peloton cycling classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.
Stats about the removal of Peloton cycling classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.

Two instructors were heavily impacted: Alex Toussaint had 107 classes removed (about 15.6% of his cycling library), and Ben Alldis had 104 classes removed (about 11.0% of his cycling library). While Olivia Amato didn’t as high a number removed, the 42 classes of hers removed equated to around 11% of her on-demand library as well. Ally Love, Robin Arzón, and Tunde Oyeneyin also had a higher number of classes removed, between 30-50.

All instructors except for Charlotte Weidenbach and Christine D’Ercole had at least one class removed.

Total Number of Peloton Tread Running Classes Removed in December 2022 Kanye West Peloton Class Purge

A total of around 151 Tread running Peloton classes were removed which had Kanye West songs, which amounts to about 3.4% of the on demand library.

Stats about the removal of Peloton Tread classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.
Stats about the removal of Peloton Tread classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.

Olivia Amato and Jess Sims were the most heavily impacted. Olivia Amato had 23 classes removed, translating to just over 7% of her running library. Jess Sims had 19 classes removed, which is nearly 10% of her running library.

Becs Gentry, Chase Tucker (who left Peloton earlier this year), Kirsten Ferguson, Rebecca Kennedy, and Robin Arzón each had around 10 classes removed.

Total Number of Peloton Strength Classes Removed in December 2022 Peloton Kanye West Class Purge

Approxiamately 131 classes were removed from the strength modality, amounting to 2.5% of the strength library.

Stats about the removal of Peloton strength classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.
Stats about the removal of Peloton strength classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.

The most heavily impacted instructors were Rad Lopez and Rebecca Kennedy, who had 27 and 23 classes removed, respectively. Jess Sims had 20 classes removed; Chase Tucker had 16 classes removed; and Ben Alldis had 15 classes removed.

Total Number of Peloton Tread Bootcamp Classes Removed in December 2022 Kanye West Peloton Class Purge

83 classes containing Kanye West music were removed from the Tread Bootcamp on-demand library.

Stats about the removal of Peloton Tread bootcamp classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.
Stats about the removal of Peloton Tread bootcamp classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.

Jess Sims had more than 11% of her Tread Bootcamp catalog removed, with 28 classes deleted. In addition, Robin Arzón’s only available Tread Bootcamp class was deleted, so there are now zero Tread Bootcamps available from her.

Total Number of Peloton Outdoor Running Classes Removed in December 2022 Peloton Kanye West Class Purge

11 outdoor classes were removed, amounting to around 2.4% of the library.

Stats about the removal of Peloton outdoor audio  classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.
Stats about the removal of Peloton outdoor audio classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.

Most instructors had 0 or 1 affected classes – though Robin Arzón had 3 affected classes, amounting to 11.1% of her outdoor library. Matt Wilpers also had 2 classes removed as well.

Total Number of Peloton Yoga Classes Removed in December 2022 Peloton Kanye West Class Purge

35 classes were removed from the yoga library, amounting to around 0.7% of the yoga library.

Stats about the removal of Peloton Yoga classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.
Stats about the removal of Peloton Yoga classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.

The most heavily impacted instructor was Aditi Shah, who had 14 classes (1.9% of her yoga library) removed. Anna Greenberg also had 8 classes removed, about 1.1% of her yoga library.

Total Number of Peloton Bike Bootcamp Classes Removed in December 2022 Peloton Kanye West Class Purge

After it was seemingly spared from the original overnight purge, Bike Bootcamp had 20 classes removed – nearly 7% of the on demand library.

Stats about the removal of Peloton Bike Bootcamp classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.
Stats about the removal of Peloton Bike Bootcamp classes with Kanye West music. This purge took place in December 2022.

All instructors except for Cody Rigsby had at least one class removed, and Tunde Oyeneyin had 7 classes removed, amounting to 10% of her Bike Bootcamp catalog.

Total Number of Peloton Meditation Classes Removed in December 2022 Kanye West Peloton Class Purge

No meditation classes were deleted in this latest Peloton class purge.

Did you have any classes in your bookmarks or stacks impacted by this purge that took place yesterday?


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Katie Weicher
Katie Weicher is a writer for Pelo Buddy. She purchased her Peloton Bike in 2016 and has been riding, strength training, and yoga flowing ever since. You can find her on the leaderboard at #kweich.

5 Comments

  • rick says:

    Great to hear now ensure they stop paying SESAC and ASCAP any royalties on his music!

  • Rachel says:

    I’m all for removing Kanye’s music, but I just realized one of the classes that was deleted is the one where I got my “comma club” shoutout from Jess Sims and now I’m bummed 😢

  • EH says:

    I’m glad to hear they did this! But a class in the Build Your Power Zones program was removed because it had a Kanye song – do you know if they have plans to replace classes that were in programs?

  • Christopher says:

    just mute the song. or let the peloton community avoid songs with KW in them if they want. I’m sick of cx culture bs. If youre offended, then don’t listen. There were several excellent classes deleted.

  • DJ says:

    I agree with you Christopher! So tired of people thinking they can decide what everyone listens to. If you’re offended tune out. And by the way either you’re happy they deleted them or not but you won’t be getting them back like some have asked for re-do’s of the class.

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