Kanye West’s recent anti-Semitic remarks are nothing new, according to Van Lathan.
The media personality claimed on his Higher Learning podcast on Tuesday (October 11) that Ye professed his love for Adolf Hitler and Nazis during his infamous visit to TMZ in 2018, where the rap mogul said slavery was a “choice.”
Lathan, who worked at TMZ until 2019, revealed he brought up the Holocaust while rebuking Kanye to illustrate the ignorance of his slavery comments. In response, Ye allegedly said he “loved Hitler and the Nazis.”
That portion of the interview, however, was edited out.
“I’ve already heard him say that stuff before,” Van Lathan said. “I mean, I was taken aback because that type of anti-Semitic talk is disgusting. But as far as him, I knew that that was in him because when came to TMZ, he said that stuff and they took it out of the interview.
“If you look at what I said at TMZ, it goes from me saying like, ‘Hey Kanye, there’s real-life, real-world implication to everything that you just said there.’ What I say after that — if I can remember, it’s been a long time — was, ’12 million people actually died because of Nazism and Hitler and all of that stuff,’ and then I move on to talk about what he said about slavery.”
He continued: “The reason they took it out is because it wouldn’t have made sense unless they kept in Kanye saying he loved Hitler and the Nazis, which he said when he was at TMZ. He said something like, ‘I love Hitler, I love Nazis.’ Something to that effect.”
Van Lathan also revealed that a Jewish staff member at TMZ challenged Kanye West over his comments about Hitler and Nazis. “One of the producers at TMZ actually stood up and said, ‘I’m Jewish and that is offensive to me what you just said,’” he recalled.
Having been privy to his anti-Semitic views in the past, Kanye West’s recent remarks came as no surprise to Van Lathan, who added: “When I saw this, I was like, ‘Oh, I knew that this was eventually coming.’ As a matter of fact, I had anticipated it coming, like, way earlier than this.”
Although Kanye West’s anti-Semitic remarks were left on the cutting room floor, Van Lathan said viewers can actually detect where that part of their conversation was edited out in the final version.
“If you go back and watch that clip, I say what I say and there’s a cut right there. People might think they stitched this together to make me seem more eloquent,” he said. “But they stitched it together to take out my reference to the Holocaust.”
Van Lathan’s bombshell claim comes on the heels of Kanye West’s Instagram and Twitter accounts being restricted due to anti-Semitic posts.
In a text conversation with Diddy shared on Instagram last week, Ye claimed Puff was being turned against him by Jewish people after the Bad Boy boss criticized the “White Lives Matter” shirt he wore during Paris Fashion Week.
Kanye later vowed to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE” in a since-deleted tweet, in which he also wrote: “The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also[.] You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”
Kanye reportedly made more anti-Semitic comments during an appearance on LeBron James’ YouTube series The Shop earlier this week, resulting in the episode being pulled.
“Kanye was booked weeks ago and, after talking to Kanye directly the day before we taped, I believed he was capable of a respectful discussion and he was ready to address all his recent comments. Unfortunately, he used The Shop to reiterate more hate speech and extremely dangerous stereotypes,” Maverick Carter announced in a statement.
“We have made the decision not to air this episode or any of Kanye’s remarks. While The Shop embraces thoughtful discourse and differing opinions, we have zero tolerance for hate speech of any kind and will never allow our channels to be used to promote hate.”
