The Breakfast Club’s Charlamagne Tha God appeared on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” to discuss his new book #ShookOne and why he recently canceled the planned New York Times‘ Times Talk with Kanye West.
Charlamagne talked about the relationship he has with Kanye, as well as Kanye’s #bipolar diagnosis and how him being off of his medication prompted him to cancel the interview. “Me and Kanye have a relationship. Not as close as him and #Trump, but we have a relationship. Every interview that he’s done over the past couple of years, including the interview I did with him earlier this year, he’s always talking about his mental health. He’s always talking about being bipolar; being on medication. I felt like everybody was bypassing that conversation.”
He also felt like recent interviews with Kanye glazed over the fact that the star wasn’t taking his medication. He didn’t want to let that continue. “When I saw him in the #WhiteHouse, he said he wasn’t on his meds because he had been misdiagnosed and he didn’t have bipolar and it was sleep deprivation,” Charlamagne told Colbert. “So I was like, ‘I think he needs to figure that out.’ What I’m trying to do, which is elevate the conversation about #mentalhealth in the black community and trying to eradicate the stigma around mental health, I just didn’t think it would be a good conversation. It’d be a distraction.”
Charlamagne stated that he initially canceled by reaching out to West’s team after Kanye’s Trump visit at the White House. “They were all kind of relieved. They just felt like that was the best thing.” He then told West himself. “He took it well,” Charlamagne said. “He definitely took it well.”
