Kanye West: Ye clashes with Piers Morgan in new interview, admits antisemitic comments caused ‘hurt’

George Floyd’s family is also considering a lawsuit against Kanye West after he spoke about how the 46-year-old man died over the weekend, according to their lawyer

Kanye West claims George Floyd’s killer didn’t really have knee on his neck

Kanye West has pologised for causing “hurt and confusion” with antisemitic comments he made last week.

Appearing on Piers Morgan Uncensored on Wednesday (19 October), the host asked the rapper whether he regretted threatening to go “DEFCON 3 on Jewish people”.

West initially doubled down on his comments, replying: “No, absolutely not.” Morgan then asked if he knew the comments were racist, to which West confirmed: “Yes, that’s why I said it... I fought fire with fire. I’m not here to get hosed down.”

Elsewhere, the mother of George Floyd’s daughter has sued Kanye West for $250m in the wake of his controversial comments about Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minnesota police officer.

And now Floyd’s family has issued a cease-and-desist letter to West for the comments he made on the Drink Champs podcast, which has now been taken down.

In the lawsuit filed by Roxie Washington, the mother of Gianna Floyd, lawyers said West made “false statements about George Floyd’s death to promote his brands, and increase marketing value and revenue for himself, his business partners, and associates.”

Earlier, The Drink Champs interview was pulled from YouTube, Rolling Stone reports.

The YouTube show’s host, N.O.R.E., apologised for the contents of the interview that he said “hurt” people during a Monday morning radio show appearance. Hours later, the video had been made private on YouTube while the podcast version of the conversation was removed from both Spotify and Apple Music earlier in the day.

Late in the night on Monday, Tesla billionaire and potential Twitter owner Elon Musk appeared to tease a possible business collaboration with West after he tweeted out a meme - and then deleted -that hinted at a team-up with the rapper and Parler, the right-wing social network he is in the process of acquiring.

Key Points

• Kanye West apologises for ‘hurt’ he has caused
• Kanye West calls Piers Morgan a ‘Karen’ in interview about antisemitic comments
• Mother of George Floyd’s daughter sues Kanye West for $250m
• Kanye marched for George Floyd and paid daughter’s tuition – now he’s being sued by his family. What changed?
• Kanye’s ‘Drink Champs’ interview removed from YouTube, Revolt

[18 October 2022 03:00 · Josh Marcus]

Kanye West is back with another Pete Davidson rant

Kanye West hit out at Kim Kardashian’s “heroin addict” ex-boyfriend Pete Davidson and talk show host Trevor Noah in his latest wild rant.

The rapper made a string of disparaging comments during an appearance on the Drink Champs podcast on Saturday with rapper N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN.

And he even blamed “Jewish Zionists” for Kim Kardashian talking about having sex with Davidson on an episode of her family’s Hulu reality TV show.

West, who has been widely criticised for a series of antisemitic comments over the past week, defended himself on the podcast.

Graeme Massie has the story.

[18 October 2022 04:00 · Josh Marcus]

Debunking Kanye West’s false claims about George Floyd

Kanye West has sparked fresh controversy by claiming that George Floyd died from fentanyl and that a police officer’s knee “wasn’t even on his neck like that.”

Floyd, a Black man, was killed in an altercation with police in Minneapolis in May 2020, with a video showing Officer Derek Chauvin with his knee on his neck for almost nine minutes.

West made the claims in an appearance on the Drink Champs podcast on Saturday and made his comments while discussing Candace Owens’s documentary The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM.

Read Graeme Massie’s full report.

[18 October 2022 06:00 · Josh Marcus]

Kanye West uses red carpet to add insult to injury against Kim Kardashian

After a week of nonstop scandals, Kanye West emerged on Wednesday night in Tennessee to pose for pictures alongside conservative podcast host Candace Owens and Kim Kardashian’s ex-boyfriend Ray J.

The trio were also joined on the red carpet by country singer Kid Rock and UFC mixed martial artist Colby Covington as they prepared to enter the Nashville theatre for the first screening of Owens’ new documentary, The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM.

Ray J, who dated Kardashian in 2003, recently became ensnared in the Kardashian-Jenner world after an episode of the family’s Hulu reality show The Kardashians discussed the famed sex tape between the pair that launched her headline-grabbing career.

In the episode, Kris Jenner, who has been accused by the musician of leaking the sex tape of her daughter to news outlets, took a lie detector test to prove her innocence. This prompted Ray J to fire back on social media, claiming he has legal documents proving the release of the tape was orchestrated by the 66-year-old manager.

Johanna Chisholm has more.

[18 October 2022 13:00 · Josh Marcus]

Kanye once marched for George Floyd and paid daughter’s tuition. Now Floyd family feels ‘betrayed’ by rapper

Kanye West has always been known for being provocative and unpredictable, but few could’ve guessed how quickly his stance on George Floyd changed in recent years.

Last week, the rapper and fashion designer, now known as Ye, appeared on the Drink Champs podcast, where he made numerous anti-Semitic remarks and cited a documentary from right-wing figure Candace Owens as proof that the police hadn’t actually killed George Floyd.

“The guy’s knee wasn’t even on his neck like that,” West said, even though both video evidence plainly shows, and medical officials and courts later confirmed, that police were the ones who killed Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.

Get the details below.

[18 October 2022 13:00 · Johanna Chisholm]

Kanye West called out by Chris Cuomo over antisemitic conspiracy theories

Kanye West has now claimed that he “doesn’t believe” in the term antisemitism.

In the past week, the 45-year-old rapper has been widely condemned for making a number of controversial comments on social media and in interviews.

On Monday, during an interview with News Nation’s Chris Cuomo, Ye addressed his plan to purchase right-wing social media network Parler.

When Cuomo asked Ye whether the antisemitic comments that he made violated Parler’s community guidelines, the Donda rapper responded: “I don’t like the term ‘antisemitic’.

“It’s been a term that’s allowed people, specifically in my industry, to get away with murder – sometimes literally – and get away with robbing and doing bad [to] people.”

Keep reading the full report from Peony Hirwani here.

[18 October 2022 14:45 · Johanna Chisholm]

Parler CEO celebrates Kanye West’s takeover of right-wing app

In a message shared on the right-wing social media app Parler, the company’s CEO, George Farmer, championed Kanye West for his acquisition of the platform, calling it a “exciting” time in the start-up’s history.

“Ye is not only a music & apparel titan but he, like Parler, has faced senseless and unnecessary censorship and cancelation by Big Tech,” began the CEO who is also the husband of conservative commentator Candace Owens. “He shares Parler’s passion for free speech and independent thought.”

[18 October 2022 15:30 · Johanna Chisholm]

ICYMI: Kanye once marched for George Floyd and paid daughter’s tuition. What changed?

Kanye West has always been known for being provocative and unpredictable, but few could’ve guessed how quickly his stance on George Floyd changed in recent years.

Last week, the rapper and fashion designer, now known as Ye, appeared on the Drink Champs podcast, where he made numerous anti-Semitic remarks and cited a documentary from right-wing figure Candace Owens as proof that the police hadn’t actually killed George Floyd.

“The guy’s knee wasn’t even on his neck like that,” West said, even though both video evidence plainly shows, and medical officials and courts later confirmed, that police were the ones who killed Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.

The Floyd family said they felt “absolutely betrayed” by the artist’s comments.

Here, Josh Marcus charts West’s path from being an outspoken supporter of the Floyd family to his recent comments where he blatantly aired lies and spread misinformation about George Floyd’s death.

[18 October 2022 17:05 · Johanna Chisholm]

ICYMI: Fox News execs hunting for person who leaked Kanye West video

During a high-profile recent appearance on Fox News, Kanye West made a number of antisemitic remarks that were edited out of the final broadcast, according to leaked videos.

Now, leaders at the network are “full-on freaked out” and hunting for the “mole” who shared the clips with the media, The Daily Beast reports.

The conservative network is known to clamp down on leakers, firing Bill O’Reilly associate producer within 24 hours of a 2012 leak.

“This new leaker learned from my mistakes,” Mr Muto told The Daily Beast. “The main reason I got caught is that I wasn’t covering my digital trail particularly well. They’re obviously doing a better job than I did if they haven’t been found yet.”

Get caught up on the background in this developing story by reading Graeme Massie’s report on the leaked footage.

[18 October 2022 19:05 · Johanna Chisholm]

TikTok users flock to Kanye West’s antisemitic rants

Kanye West’s recent antisemitic rants may have gotten him locked out his social media accounts, and condemned by a variety of people, but that hasn’t stopped TikTok users from flocking to his hateful comments and even mixing it with literal Nazi propaganda.

The content violates TikTok’s speech guidelines, which state, “We do not permit content that contains hate speech or involves hateful behavior, and we remove it from our platform.”

However, as Rolling Stone reports, the hateful videos remain on the site for now.

[18 October 2022 19:26 · Graeme Massie]

Mother of George Floyd’s daughter sues Kanye West for $250m

The mother of George Floyd’s daughter has sued Kanye West for $250m in the wake of his controversial comments about Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minnesota police officer.

The rapper sparked new controversy over the weekend by claiming that Floyd died from the drug Fentanyl and that a police officer’s knee “wasn’t even on his neck like that.”