Celeb Controversy

Kanye West Stands By His Love Of Donald Trump And His TMZ Rant On Slavery

Kanye West has been pretty outspoken in the media this year about politics, the black community, and his bipolar disorder. Although many fans were angry and outraged over comments he had made in April about Donald Trump and slavery, the rapper now says he doesn’t regret the things he has said.
While appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Kanye West discussed things from Donald Trump’s presidency to the “slavery is a choice” comments he had made on TMZ. Kimmel asked West about the comments he had made and brought up how angry fans were at West for making them.

Kimmel had asked West:

People got really mad when you were — well, some people were very happy when you said you liked President Trump. Do you like, do you think he is a good president?

West, instead of answering simply, gave a complex answer saying that he wanted to stray away from what everyone wanted for him.

Just as a musician, African-American, guy out in Hollywood, all these different things, you know, everyone around me tried to pick my candidate for me, and then told me every time I said I liked Trump that I couldn’t say it out loud or my career would be over, I’d get kicked out of the black community because blacks are supposed to have a monolithic thought — we can only be Democrats and all…. And it took me a year-and-a-half to have the confidence to stand up and put on the hat.

The hat he’s speaking of is the “Make America Great Again” hat that he wore in a tweet he posted in April.

He continued by saying that liberals cannot bully him and wearing the hat was almost a clap-back to liberals who wanted to make choices for him.

Liberals can’t bully me, news can’t bully me, the hip-hop community, they can’t bully me. At that point, if I’m afraid to be me, I’m no longer Ye. That’s what makes Ye. I actually quite enjoy when people actually are mad at me about certain things.

When Kimmel brought up the TMZ rant that West had gone on where he said that slavery is a choice, West said:

What was awesome [about the TMZ interview] is the world got to really experience someone in a ramped-up state. And that’s when you get these comments that just shoot out, almost like Tourette’s.

He also stated that he enjoys when people are mad at him–which comes as no surprise seeing as he says things that bother people almost on a daily basis. But, when Kimmel asked West if he thinks Trump cares about black people–referring to the comments he had made in the past about George W. Bush, West fell silent.

Aside from the political conversation, West also opened up about his bipolar diagnosis and said that he doesn’t hate being bipolar.

It’s awesome. It actually drives more of how you really feel. It doesn’t do the opposite thing. I think it’s important for us to have conversations about, you know, open conversations about mental health. Especially with me being black. Because we never had therapists in the black community.

Watch the entire interview here.

People on Twitter were in awe of Jimmy Kimmel and his ability to stump West in terms of his support for Trump. Many felt as though the interview was worth it just to see West in silence at the very end.

Others were straight up just over Kanye.