Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has apologized for falsely claiming that George Floyd died of fentanyl rather than police brutality. Floyd’s family previously announced plans to file a $250 million lawsuit against Ye for the statement, which was made on the hip-hop podcast Drink Champs. “It hurt my people, it hurt the Black people,†the rapper told paparazzi on Friday. “So I want to apologize to hurting them, because right now God is showing me by what Adidas is doing and by what the media is doing — I know how it feels to have a knee on my neck now.†During the apparently impromptu press conference that lasted for roughly 16 minutes, Ye also said that the video of Floyd being suffocated by officer Derek Chauvin upsets him, adding that he knows that police “do attack†in a “generally racist†America.
Adidas and a number of other companies have cut ties with Ye after he caused controversy all month, including for antisemitic comments that emboldened hate groups and for his “White Lives Matter†shirts. When asked by paparazzi about his antisemitic comments specifically, Ye said he hadn’t known that what he said would be considered antisemitic. He doubled down on the rhetoric he has been criticized for, pulling up a spreadsheet of Jewish media executives and comparing Planned Parenthood to the Holocaust. The rapper concluded that the backlash that has cost him his billionaire status is God’s way of “humbling†him.