Kanye West blames booze for viral antisemitic rant
The artist formerly known as Kanye West is blaming booze for his now infamous antisemitic tweet from 2022, in which he said he was going to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”
The newly surfaced comments came during an old appearance on the “Candace Owens” podcast — from the same year Ye sported a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt at his Paris Fashion Week show, praised Hitler and wrote the antisemetic rant that went viral on social media.
Despite being recorded in 2022, the podcast episode was only released on Wednesday. In it, the 47-year-old rapper revealed he had been drinking Hennessy when he made the offensive remarks.
“I definitely was drinking when I put up the [DEFCON] tweet,” he told Owens, a conservative political personality. “You wanna know what alcohol I had inside me? Hennessy. It turns us gray. The demons [come out].”
He said he didn’t immediately disclose to the public he was drinking because he didn’t want his views to be “discredited,” adding that he still feels his words had “truth.”
West’s antisemitic tweet sparked widespread outrage and cost him several business deals at the time, including partnerships with Balenciaga and Adidas.
In December, he shared a since-deleted apology, written in Hebrew, to his Instagram account, saying, “It was not my intention to hurt or demean, and I deeply regret any pain I may have caused.”
Despite the apology, the rapper told TMZ earlier this year that he still felt some of his antisemitic comments were completely accurate, but didn’t specify which he was referring to.
Wednesday’s newly released comments aren’t the first time Hennessy has been connected to West’s bad behavior. Swigging cognac on the red carpet of the 2009 VMAs seemingly led to another controversial moment — his infamous interruption of Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech for Best Video by a Female Artist.