Event featuring author Bret Easton Ellis reportedly sees walk-outs after allegedly saying Kanye West is not an antisemite 

An event featuring the author Bret Easton Ellis reportedly saw walk-outs after he allegedly said that rapper Kanye West, who has publicly professed his adoration for Adolf Hitler, was not an antisemite. 

Mr Ellis is reported to have said: “Kanye now is no different from the Kanye I met in 2013. He is outrageous, he is provocative. I don’t believe he is an antisemite.

“He is a destroying artist. He wants to live in a world that is completely free. He just wants to say ‘f*** you’ to everybody.”

Members of the audience in attendance at the Westminster UnHerd Club’s event reportedly then walked out.

Mr West made headlines following a series of antisemitic comments last year, which resulted in Adidas cutting ties with the rapper after Campaign Against Antisemitism launched a petition garnering nearly 200,000 signatures in a matter of days. 

• On 7th October 2022, he posted on Instagram: “Ima use you as an example to show the Jewish people that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me.”
• Two days later he tweeted: “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con [sic] 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.”

On an episode of the Drink Champs podcast, aired on 16th October 2022, Mr West:

• Said: “The thing about me and Adidas is like, I can literally say antisemitic s*** and they can’t drop me. I can say antisemitic things and Adidas can’t drop me. Now what?”
• Demanded: “I want all the Jewish children to look at they daddy and say ‘Why is Ye mad at us?’”
• Stated that was “Me Too-ing the Jewish culture. I’m saying y’all gotta stand up and admit to what y’all been doing, and y’all just got away with it for so long, that y’all ain’t even realise what y’all doing.”
• Referred throughout the interview to “Jewish business secrets”, “Jewish Zionists”, and stated how Jewish people in the entertainment industry “will take one of us, the brightest of us, that can really feed a whole village, and they’ll take us and milk us until we die.”
• Claimed that he had been “blocked out” by “the Jewish media”.
• Said: “Jewish people have owned the Black voice, whether it’s through us wearing a Ralph Lauren shirt, or it’s all of us being signed to a record label, or having a Jewish manager, or being signed to a Jewish basketball team, or doing a movie on a Jewish platform like Disney.”
• Doubled down on his tweet about “going death con [sic] 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE”, claiming that he “is Jewish also”, adding: “We’re not just Black. We are Jew [sic], just like the Jewish people…I can’t be an antisemite.”
• Claimed that he responded to being invited to a Holocaust museum by saying: “I want you to visit Planned Parenthood. That’s our Holocaust museum.” 
• Complained about being photographed in public, saying: “You get used to being screwed by the Jewish media.” 
• Said: “A thing that a Jewish person will always say is they’ll say ‘This is mine’. Something that a Black person built, or any company built, they’ll be like ‘This is mine now’.”
• Referencing fellow rapper Ice Cube, who was criticised for sharing an antisemitic image, said: “You really influenced me to get on this antisemite vibe, and I’m here to finish the job.” (Ice Cube has refuted this claim and distanced himself from Ye.)

In an interview on CUOMO on the NewsNation network, aired on 18th October 2022, Mr West:

• Said: “I don’t like the term ‘antisemitic’. It’s been a term that’s allowed people, specifically in my industry, to get away with murder.”
• Made comments referring to the “Jewish underground media mafia”. 
• Claimed “Jewish people own the Black voice.”