HU Exclusive: Kanye West On How The Media ‘Strips His Humanity’ While Detailing What Led Him To Knock Out An Autograph Seeker
Kanye West is always snapped by paparazzi with a swarm of fans around him and despite how hectic things may get, he always stops to acknowledge them, even if it’s just signing his autograph.
In a new interview with Jason Lee from the Hollywood Unlocked Studios in Los Angeles, Ye gives details on what led him to “knockout” a guy, not a “fan,” who tried “to make money off of him.” Speaking about the incident that went down early Thursday morning in DTL, Kanye explained, “It was 3 a.m. in front of the Warehouse. I’m saying, ‘You don’t know what I’m dealing with right now.’ I just finished these two songs, I came from the studio, and my cousins didn’t really deliver the mission,” Ye said referring to him asking his cousins to speak with his estranged wife Kim Kardashian about an issue he had with her security blocking him from picking up his kids.
Speaking more about what happened that night, Kanye went on to say, “And this dude, he just had this real attitude, like, ‘What you gonna do? And see that?’ Imma just tell you, that blue COVID mask ain’t stop that knockout, you know what I’m saying?” Jason Lee then asked, “was it the taunting, the disrespect, the disregard for your privacy? What was it?” Kanye honestly answered, “it’s all that but that’s what Hollywood be! look, all I’m saying, I love the paparazzi, I love the press, I love the media, but then they send those two, probably like some agents or something to really gaslight the situation.”
Further into the conversation, West said that the person that was asking for his autograph was not a fan, but a person “taking autographs to make money on them.”
“This is the same as the paparazzi, this is not a fan. This is someone who is using your image, who probably never listened to your songs, are ones that are like, ‘This is my song, for real?'” he said, explaining that during that same time, his female cousins came back after attempting to talk to estranged wife Kim Kardashian West about personal parenting matters. “So now my cousins are coming back and they have not delivered on it. So I end up getting into an altercation with the guy that wanted to make money off of my autographs, then my cousin pulls up and she’s talking to me. I say, ‘Give me a breather. Get away from me.’ She is not taking accountability for the fact that she did not do what she was supposed to do, and that added to me being in a mood where I was like, ‘I am not going to have this.'”
He went on to say,
“Everyone is using me. Everyone is on my payroll and everyone is using me,” he stated, sharing that the reason that paparazzi were able to get video of his altercation was that his cousin “was not going to get away from me.”
Earlier in the conversation, Ye talks about how the media strips “away his humanity” and even further dives into what happened that night.
As noted by TMZ, LAPD is investigating Kanye for misdemeanor battery, a crime that carries a maximum jail sentence of 6 months.
Kanye West’s full interview will be available on Monday on Hollywood Unlocked’s YouTube channel.
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