Kanye West went on a bizarre rant on Friday night in front of gathered paparazzi in which he apologized for falsely claiming George Floyd died from the narcotic drug fentanyl rather than the reality which saw a Minneapolis police officer suffocating him by placing a knee on his neck for nine minutes.
West, who now goes by Ye, engaged with photographers for a lengthy conversation in which he also said he did not realize he was being anti-Semitic in earlier comments.
While West didn’t apologize while making his remarks, he did say that he had been ‘humbled’ with the furor costing him an estimated $1 billion in business deals, including his highly-successful Yeezy line of clothing sold by Adidas.
West equated the experience akin to having a ‘knee on my neck’ in a direct comparison with Floyd’s 2020 death under the hands of officer Derek Chauvin.
The conversation was both convoluted and confusing in which West would make statements before retracting them simultaneously.
‘When I see that video as a black person, it hurts my feelings. And I know that police do attack and America is generally racist,’ he said to waiting photographers. ‘And I understand that when we got to say Black Lives Matter, that the idea of it made us feel good together as a people, right?
‘So when I questioned the death of George Floyd, it hurt my people. I want to apologize. Because God has showed me by what Adidas is doing, by what the media is doing, I know how it feels to have a knee on my neck now,’ he continued.
‘So thank you God for humbling me and letting me know how it really felt. Because how could the richest black men ever be humbled other than to be made to not be a billionaire in front of everyone off of one comment.’
The family of George Floyd is currently in the midst of preparing a $250 million lawsuit against West for his unfounded claims made during a podcast earlier this month.
During the Drink Champs podcast, West alleged that Floyd died from a fentanyl overdose. In the same interview, which has since been taken down by YouTube, West also made anti-Semitic comments.
In May 2020, Floyd’s death sparked international outrage and sparked a global conversation about police brutality in the US after white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee against the neck of the unarmed black man for a total of nine minutes and 29 seconds during an arrest outside a Cup Foods grocery store.
In April 2021, Chauvin was found guilty of three murder and manslaughter charges and is now serving two prison sentences concurrently of more than 22 years. Three other officers involved in the incident received lighter sentences.
Furthermore, his anti-Semitic comment made on social media within the past week has proved costly and led to an exodus of brands and companies dropping the rapper, including talent agency CAA.
Other brands including fashion house Balenciaga, and banking giant JP Morgan Chase have also dropped him.
His total wealth plummeted as it fell from a reported $2 billion to around $500 million following Adidas severing ties with him.
In other portions of the rambling rant, West did not appear to have learned his lesson as he continued to double down on his anti-Semitic claim that Jews control the media and Hollywood. He then pulled up a spreadsheet that he said contained the names of Jewish executives who help run top media brands.
He then turned his phone toward the cameras to show onlookers the number of Jews currently in positions of power across the field of media.
Their names weren’t visible, so it was impossible to verify West’s claims. He named businesses including Disney, Paramount, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times as among those with Jewish staff members working at the highest echelons.
Claims of powerful Jews controlling industries is a common anti-Semitic trope that has long been used to stoke prejudice against Jewish people.
As he spoke, West insisted that he had not formerly understood that it was anti-Semitic to observe that many of the business associates with whom he works and under his employ are Jewish.
‘I didn’t realize that it was anti-Semitic to say hey you know, I have a Jewish attorney, I have a Jewish record label, I have a Jewish contractor,’ he said after reading out a definition of the term antisemitism.
When he was then asked if he should walk back some of his comments, he pulled out the list of executives and began reading the names of companies at which Jewish executives are employed.
The red are the executives that are Jewish at these companies,’ he said of the list on which most names are highlighted in red.
He told the press that he’s ‘had experiences (with Jewish executives) where it felt like I was being teamed up on.’
He added that his de facto industry blackballing in the wake of his ongoing comments is ‘actually proving what I had to say’ – meaning, Jewish executives have made the decision to bar him from practicing certain sorts of business and therefore from having influence.
Last week, Hollywood super-agent Ari Emmanuel – who is Jewish – wrote a letter directed at members of his industry, encouraging them to disassociate from West and stop doing business with him.
Later on in the conversation, West said he believes God has been humbling him for bragging often about his wealth – much of which he has lost due to suspended brand deals.
He further added that years ago, when he was hospitalized for his mental health, a Jewish doctor misdiagnosed him with Bi-Polar disorder, leaked his presence at the hospital to the press, and attempted to control him with medication.
West has famously declined to take any mood-stabilizing drugs – despite his diagnosis.
He said that if a doctor were to mix up a pill of his, he could end up like Prince – who died by accidental fentanyl overdose – or Michael Jackson – who died of anesthesia poisoning.
Earlier this week, Ye continued to defend his anti-Semitic stance in a two-hour-and-26 minute interview with podcast host Lex Fridman, a Russian-American computer scientist who is also Jewish.
Ye blamed Jewish people for his mental health problems, and claimed Jews ‘control the media’.
He told Fridman: ‘We are still in the Holocaust. A Jewish friend of mine said, ”Go visit the Holocaust Museum,” and my response was, let’s visit our Holocaust Museum: Planned Parenthood.
‘Fifty percent today of . . . black people’s deaths today is abortion.
It’s not racism; that’s too wide of a term. It’s genocide and population control that black people are in today in America, that is promoted by the music and the media that black people make, that Jewish record labels get paid off of.
Fridman challenged Ye on his claim of Jewish control of media and industry.
‘I grew up in the Soviet Union,’ Fridman said.
‘I’m Jewish, parts of my family perished in the Holocaust of Nazi Germany, I have to push back. When you say ”Jewish media”, there’s an echo of a pain that people feel.’
The rapper replied: ‘You’re saying it’s redundant, right. If Jewish people would accept that I’m a Jew, they’d hear it in a different way.’
Fridman said: ‘The right thing is not to say there’s Jewish control of the media.’
Ye yelled: ‘That’s incorrect though! That’s a f****** lie. There is. And they did come and bully me and proved the point.’
He claimed his own mental health disorder was the result of a Jewish conspiracy.
‘There was a Jewish trainer that brought me to the hospital, and put in [the] press that I went to the hospital. A Jewish doctor that diagnosed me.’
Fridman replied: ‘Why do you keep saying Jewish?’
Ye said: ‘Because they were. Diagnosed me with bipolar disorder and shot me with medication. Then put it in the press.’
Credit: Daily Mail
