On Thursday night, Kanye West made his highly-anticipated return to “Jimmy Kimmel Live” with Jimmy Kimmel, nearly five years after the two settled their Twitter beef on-air. During the rapper’s appearance, the two discussed everything from West’s support of Donald Trump, mental health, and his wife, Kim Kardashian.
In his defense of his support of Trump, West maintained that he doesn’t care what others think, and shot down the notion that “blacks can only be Democrats.”
“Just as a musician, African-American, everyone around me tried to pick my candidate for me and then told me that I couldn’t say that I like Trump,” he said, attributing his newfound freedom to say what he truly felt to his 2016 hospitalization. “If I’m afraid to be me, then I’m not ‘Ye, that’s what makes me ‘Ye. I enjoy when people are mad at me about certain things.”
However, in turn, Kimmel continued to question West’s though-process in his support of Trump, recalling one of West’s most famous hottakes.
“You so famously and so powerfully said ‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people.’ It makes me wonder: What makes you think that Donald Trump does, or any people at all?” Kimmel asked, leaving the “Yikes” singer speechless.
Kimmel also inquired about West’s mental health, including his album cover, which read, “I hate being bipolar. It’s awesome.”
“It’s not an opposite,” West said, adding that he feels his diagnosis is part of what makes him “brilliant.” “It actually drives more of how you really feel. It doesn’t do the opposite. So I think it’s important for us to have open conversations about mental health, especially with me being black, because we never had therapists in the black community. We never approached: Take your medication.”
“I think it’s good that when I had my first complete blackout at age 5 my mom didn’t fully medicate me because I might have never been Ye,” he continued. “There’s a time where at least I’m happy that I know. For this interview, I knew I wanted to stay in a calm state because, by the time I got to TMZ, I was ramped up. So what was awesome is that the world really got to experience someone in a ramped up state.”
As the two continued, Kimmel highlighted his wife’s newly-formed relationship with Trump, in the wake of her successful attempt to issue a presidential pardon for Alice Marie Johnson, who had been serving a life sentence for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense.
“Well she’s super passionate about it,” West said, “and it was amazing for her to see that dream come true.”
Check out the full interview below:
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