Kanye West says slavery 'sounds like a choice,' reveals opioid addiction after liposuction in explosive new interview
Kanye West is sparking outrage for his incendiary comments. It must be Tuesday.
The 40-year-old rapper stopped by TMZ Live today for a wide-ranging interview that not only touched on his opioid addiction and liposuction, but also had him declaring that slavery was “a choice.”
“When you hear about slavery for 400 years — for 400 years?!” he said. “That sounds like a choice.”
West continued, “Like, you was there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all? You know like, it’s like we’re mentally in prison. I like the word ‘prison’ because slavery goes too direct to the idea of blacks. It’s like slavery, Holocaust. Holocaust, Jews. Slavery is blacks. So prison is something that unites us as one race, blacks and whites being one race. That we’re the human race.”
Kim Kardashian’s husband later asked the TMZ newsroom if they thought he was “being free” and “thinking free.” One staffer, Van Lathan, stood up and challenged West in a moment that is quickly going viral.
“You’re entitled to believe whatever you want, but there is fact and real-world, real-life consequence behind everything you just said,” Lathan exclaimed. “While you are making music and being an artist and living the life that you’ve earned by being a genius, the rest of us in society have to deal with these threats to our lives. We have to deal with the marginalization that has come from the 400 years of slavery that you said for our people was a choice.”
— Elliott Wilson (@ElliottWilson) May 1, 2018
West’s opinions on slavery quickly drew further rebukes online, which he addressed on Twitter.
to make myself clear. Of course I know that slaves did not get shackled and put on a boat by free will
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
My point is for us to have stayed in that position even though the numbers were on our side means that we were mentally enslaved
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
we are programmed to always talk and fight race issues. We need to update our conversation.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
the reason why I brought up the 400 years point is because we can’t be mentally imprisoned for another 400 years. We need free thought now. Even the statement was an example of free thought It was just an idea
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
once again I am being attacked for presenting new ideas
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
in school we need to learn how magic Johnson built his business not always about the past. Matter fact I’ve never even heard of a high school class that presents future ideas
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 1, 2018
when the media masses and scholars talk about what started today. Here’s a title …
the overground hell road
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 2, 2018
I freed a thousand slaves I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves. – Harriet Tubman
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) May 2, 2018
But he didn’t stop with those instantly controversial comments. Here are four other moments that have set social media on fire.
Kanye got liposuction.
Before embarking on his “Life of Pablo” tour, West admitted he had liposuction.
“I had plastic surgery because I was trying to look good for y’all. I got liposuction because I didn’t want y’all to call me fat like y’all called Rob [Kardashian] at the wedding and made him fly home before me and Kim got married,” West revealed. (Although Rob made the trip to Europe, he didn’t attend Kim and Kanye’s wedding in Italy, abruptly flying home before the ceremony.)
“I didn’t want y’all to call me fat, so I got liposuction,” West said.
It’s shocking West underwent the procedure given that his mother, Donda, died one day after undergoing liposuction, a tummy tuck and a breast reduction in November 2007. Kanye wants to use a photo of the surgeon who operated on his mother for his album cover.
The procedure led to opioid addiction, triggering his hospitalization.
West confirmed what he reportedly told a radio host last week — that his 2016 breakdown was partly caused from an opioid addiction. He got hooked on the pills after the cosmetic procedure.
“Two days before I was in the hospital I was on opioids. I was addicted to opioids,” West revealed. The rapper says he made people get him pills while on tour and that his team was aware of it. The rapper also revealed that he abruptly stopped taking the pills and two days later, he was hospitalized.
After West’s hospitalization, he was prescribed medication — but we don’t know what exactly for.
West hints he was diagnosed with something after his breakdown (or rather, “breakthrough”), saying he was prescribed medication upon his release.
“I was taking two pills a day at that time. When I left the hospital how many pills do you think I was given? Seven,” West yelled at the newsroom. “I went from taking two pills to taking seven.”
He continued, “So the reason why I dropped those tweets and everything is because I was drugged the f*** out, bro, and I’m not drugged out … these pills that they want me to take three of a day, I take one a week, maybe, two a week. Y’all had me scared of myself, of my vision, so I took some pills so I wouldn’t go the hospital and prove everyone right.”
It’s unclear what West was prescribed medication for. “We are drugged out,” he says. “We are following other people’s opinions. We are controlled by the media and today it all changes.”
Yeezy thinks Daz Dillinger’s call for the Crips to “f***” him up is “so dope.”
Cops are investigating Dillinger’s video urging the Crips to attack West, but it’s something the 40-year-old rapper thinks is actually pretty cool.
“I was like, Aw, that’s so dope, they love me,” West thought when he saw the news. “That’s like my brother, your brother beat you up. Like, ‘Man you getting out of line, bro, you trippin’, imma beat you up.’ I was like, aw, man, that’s love man. Daz love me and I love Daz.”
“So you’re not taking it seriously?” host Harvey Levin asked.
“You can live through an ass whoopin’,” West replied. “Probably the idea is to beat sense into me.”
The police aren’t taking the matter as lightly.
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