Kanye West didn’t just detour into the world of the bizarre. The College Dropout architect has been spewing controversial and inflammatory statements for several years now.
According to The Wrap, both Netflix and David Letterman edited out portions of a Kanye West studio interview in 2019 where he reportedly made Nazi references and blamed Rihanna for her domestic violence episode at the hands of Chris Brown.
Audience members Noah Reich and David Maldonado of Los Angeles told the publication they were sitting in the front row of a local theater in January 2019 when West visited Letterman’s show, “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction” with David Letterman.
During that two-day studio visit, Ye reportedly espoused right wing rhetoric and said liberals treated anyone donning a red Trump MAGA hat “like they were Nazis.” Most incendiary of his pronouncements, however, is when he claimed that Rihanna had to have done something to deserve the beating she received in 2009.
“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 The Wrap.
Other portions of the interview that were edited out include the part where Yeezy said an unnamed music executive friend – whom Reich and Maldonado believe was R. Kelly – got “MeToo-ed” and that West himself could be “MeToo-ed.”
Most chilling was the part where the audience members recollection that Kanye ranted about how the media is always taking the women’s side during misconduct allegations.
As an example, Reich and Maldonado recall Kanye saying, “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,” they recall Ye saying at the time.
Netflix, which aired the interview, has not confirmed nor denied the allegations brought by Reich and Maldonado. However, Letterman’s Worldwide Pants, Inc., producer of “My Next Guest,” informed The Wrap 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 show.
