Kanye West has doubled down on his anti-Jewish comments, claiming that “Black people can’t be antisemitic.”
Speaking to TMZ at LAX on Monday (February 12) after attending the Super Bowl in Las Vegas, Ye discussed his controversial comments about Jewish people, which he had previously apologized for.
Addressing the backlash to his past remarks, which included praising Hitler and spreading conspiracy theories about Jewish people, he said: “They got the right to their opinion. I got the right to my opinion. You understand what I’m saying?
“We all have the right to our opinions but so many people will lose their jobs, lose their careers for taking the steps that we took. We went down for like a year and a half.”
Kanye also directly addressed the fallout from his October 2022 tweet saying he was going to go “death con 3” on Jewish people: “I even sent the apology and [adidas] still fuck with me. Some of the stuff I was saying was true.
“So until y’all come up and say, ‘Yo, what he was saying, some of that was true,’ go ahead with all that … Black people can’t be antisemitic. We are Jews, you understand what I’m saying? We are Jew.”
He added: “For all the Jewish kids that love me, I’m sorry if y’all had to hear a grown up conversation with us screaming at each other, but we got to a point where something needed to happen, something needed to be said.”
Late last year, Kanye West released an apology in Hebrew to the Jewish community following a continued stream of antisemitic remarks.
“I sincerely apologize to the Jewish community for any unintended outburst caused by my words or actions,” the apology reads in English. “It was not my intention to hurt or demean, and I deeply regret any pain I may have caused.
“I am committed to starting with myself and learning from this experience to ensure greater sensitivity and understanding more in the future. Your forgiveness is important to me, and I am committed to making amends and promoting unity.”
West had previously said he saw “good things” in Hitler and was seen in public with Holocaust deniers.
Despite his show of remorse, the rap mogul addressed the controversy with a similar defiance on his recently released album with Ty Dolla $ign, Vultures 1.
“Crazy, bipolar, antisemite/ And I’m still the king,” he rapped on the closing song “King.”
