More controversial comments from Kanye West are coming to light.
via: The Wrap
Netflix and David Letterman’s production company edited out comments by Kanye “Ye” West that referenced Nazis and blamed Rihanna for her own domestic abuse during a 2019 interview with the comedian for his talk show, multiple audience members at the taping told TheWrap.
The comments were made during a wide-ranging interview taped before a live audience for Season 2 of the comedian’s Netflix talk show “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman.”
Audience members Noah Reich and David Maldonado of Los Angeles told TheWrap they were sitting in the center front row of a local theater in January 2019 when West, who has since legally changed his name to Ye, repeated right-wing conspiracy theories, observed that liberals treated anyone wearing a red pro-Trump cap “like they were Nazis” and noted that Rihanna, a former victim of domestic abuse, must have done something to deserve what happened to her.
These comments were largely not included in the version that has streamed on Netflix, according to audience members at the taping.
“It was shocking to see that Kanye West could share harmful alt-right beliefs, conspiracy theory after conspiracy and misogynistic beliefs about women for the majority of the interview and end up with an edit that removed all those items in favor of celebrity fluff content,” Reich told TheWrap.
Some of the aired episode was devoted to Letterman discussing and trying on the rapper’s Yeezy clothes and shoes and the rapper’s Sunday Service song-and-prayer gatherings. The show did include one comment about liberals bullying then-President Donald Trump supporters as well as some #MeToo discussion.
Other Ye comments that were edited out included a rant about how an unnamed music executive friend – whom Reich and Maldonado suspected was R. Kelly – got “MeToo-ed” and how West himself could be “MeToo-ed,” they said. The rapper also repeatedly referenced a Hollywood power structure that he suggested was behind the #MeToo movement, which Reich said struck him as a reference to Jewish people.
Reich and Maldonado said they heard Ye complain that the media always seemed to support women over men when misconduct allegations surfaced. As one example, Maldonado recalled that Ye complained that “Chris Brown’s career is basically over and you have Rihanna and everyone took her side. She must have done something to merit what happened to her.” In 2009, singer Chris Brown pleaded guilty to a felony assault charge after a brutal attack on his then-girlfriend, Rihanna.
The fact that some of Ye’s comments didn’t make the cut first surfaced in late October in a newsletter service by writer Elad Nehorai.
The Wrap could not independently verify Ye’s words at the Jan. 14, 2019 taping at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center. Netflix did not provide a copy of the tape or a transcript of the entire interview when asked. Audience members were prohibited from recording the live taping, attendees said. Representatives listed for West on IMDb and elsewhere did not respond to requests for comment.
Letterman’s Worldwide Pants, Inc., producer of “My Next Guest,” told TheWrap in a written statement that the series was “an edited conversation show” and shot for more than five hours over two days with West and then edited down to a 55-minute episode.
