on Thursday night turned on his former friend Jared Kushner, accusing ‘s son-in-law of being entitled, a mercenary and amoral as part of a wide-ranging interview with Tucker Carlson.
Two weeks after proclaiming his admiration for Kushner in an interview with ABC News, West told the host that he was not a fan of the 41-year-old former senior adviser to Trump, and his entrepreneur brother Josh, 37.
West — friends with the Kushners since at least 2010 — said he had dined with the brothers and Jared’s wife recently and was unimpressed.
‘After talking to them and really sitting with Jared and sitting with Josh and finding out other pieces of information, I was like, wow, these guys might have really been holding Trump back, being very much a handler,’ said West.
The rapper and musician in August 2020 spent time with Jared Kushner and Ivanka
Share this article
Share
West was also angered to learn that Josh Kushner, a venture capitalist, owned 10 percent of ex-wife Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand, Skims — double what West owned.
‘These VCs come in and get a piece of it after the fact, and treat they run around and say they have ownership,’ said West.
West said that he was instrumental in founding the brand with his then-wife, and accused the Kushner brothers of damaging the brand.
‘It reaches another level when her business partners are selling pieces of the company they don’t have to, because the company is already a successful, internet-based company,’ said West.
‘They are really just selling off the company in order to create more relationships for themselves that are unneeded.’
He said he was angered by the marketing strategy, for which he blamed the Kushners.
‘I had a lot of issues with the imagery — I felt like there’s a lot of imagery that was openly sexualized and things I would not want to see my wife and definitely not my daughters doing in the future in order to sell a product,’ said West.
‘It reaches another level when it’s like this is what my wife is doing, this is what they are doing — this is what she is doing for our children.’
Kanye West, 45, could be seen grinning ear to ear at something on his phone as he touched down in Los Angeles on Thursday
West looked comfortable in a nondescript black hoodie, though he kept the hood down in favor of a black baseball cap reading 2023 on the bill, presumably in honor of Yeezy’s Spring 2023 show
West also spoke to Carlson amid the ongoing controversy over his ‘White Lives Matter’ fashion show concept, which sparked widespread controversy at Paris Fashion Week.
The catwalk presentation was staged on Monday, and West told Carlson it was based on a ‘feeling’ and ‘gut instinct.’
The rapper compared the stunt to Tonya Harding instinctively landing the first triple axel jump at the 1991 U.S.Figure Skating Championships in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
‘I do certain things from a feeling, I just channel the energy it feels right,’ said West.
‘Hits using a gut instinct, connection with god and just brilliance.They asked Tonya Harding how she did the triple flip and she was in so much practice that when it was time for her to skate in a competitive format it just happened. It happened outside of practice that happened in the real format.
‘That’s what’s happening.God is preparing us for the real battles. We are in a battle with the media.’
West, who arrived at the studio sporting a lanyard he had designed with a photo of a baby’s ultrasound, also opened up about why he’s pro-life.
‘It just represents life.I’m pro-life,’ said West, when asked about his design.
Carlson told him: ‘You wear it like a badge.’
‘I don’t care about people’s responses but I care about the fact that there are more black babies being aborted than born in at this point,’ West said.
‘That 50 per cent of black death in America is abortion. I really don’t care about people’s response to that.I perform for an audience of one and that is God. ‘
‘They do’: Kanye West doubled down on his ‘White Lives Matter’ slogan on Wednesday and explained that when people ask why he made the shirt he replies that it’s because ‘They do’
Shocking the fans: Ye, 45, first wore the ‘White Lives Matter’ design at his surprise Yeezy fashion show in Paris on Monday
West stood by the ‘White Lives Matter’ slogan he wore on a T-shirt at his surprise Yeezy fashion show — even though his spokesman, Jason Lee, quit in protest.
Lee wrote on Instagram that West was ‘gaslighting black people and empowering white supremacy.’
The Donda rapper, 45, posted a photo of the long-sleeved black shirt to his Instagram on Wednesday with the caption: ‘Here’s my latest response when people ask me why I made a tee that says white lives matter… THEY DO.’
During the Carlson interview, West also called out politicians, including ‘friend’ Trump, for using Black people to boost their approval ratings.
Recounting a phonecall he shared with Trump, West said: ‘One of the things he said to me is, »Kanye, you’re my friend.When you came to the White House, my Black approval rating went up 40 per cent».
West said: ‘For politicians, all Black people are worth is an approval rating… The Democrats feel that they don’t owe us anything, and Republicans feel like they don’t owe us anything.’
He also told Carlson he was shocked to learn that ex-wife Kim had a close relationship with the Clintons — close enough that they were ‘just a phone call away’, Kanye explained in the exclusive interview.
‘Close enough to say »Tell Kanye to say this,» or close enough to use our platforms to push vaccinations,’ he continued.
Carlson told his viewers that Kanye was surprised to learn after his divorce that ‘his former wife had a close and secretive relationship with the Clintons, and that they were working on her to influence him to read from the script.’
Carlson told his viewers that Kanye was surprised to learn after his divorce that ‘his former wife had a close and secretive relation with the Clintons, and that they were working on her to influence him to read from the script
‘It was interesting, friend of mine told me that Kris and Kim had called him because he had influence inside the black community,’ Kanye said.’And had called him to say, to get him to influence people to take the vaccination.
‘And I don’t have opinion on that I just wanted to state that as a statement. It was wild that I didn’t know how close my own wife was to the Clintons.I didn’t know, I didn’t realize it at the time.’
Carlson asked Kanye if he felt at times like he was being manipulated by political forces through his wife.
‘Attempted manipulation, me not saying I liked Trump was a form of manipulation,’ he said.
Meanwhile, one of the only famous friends coming to the defense of Kim Kardashian’s ex-husband at the moment is Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, who called the musician a ‘free thinker’ and says his message was ‘misconstrued.’
Diddy, 52, said ‘My boy is a super, super, super free thinker,’ in an interview on The Breakfast Club on Wednesday.
‘And a lot of times, what he means is, like, misconstrued, you know what I’m saying?’ the record executive added.
When host Charlamagne, 44, interjected to say, ‘You gotta stop making excuses for him,’ the mogul replied: ‘No, no, I’m not making excuses, I’m just sayin’ if he did it, that’s the way he thinks.’
<div class="art-ins mol-factbox news" data-version="2" id="mol-def3ed70-461c-11ed-b963-dd64e5833d96" website turns on Jared Kushner and says he only wants to 'make money'