Ye apologized for his anti-Semitic “death con” comments Wednesday, underscoring that his tweet came from a place of “hurt.”
“I will say I’m sorry for the people that I hurt with the ‘Death Con’ — the confusion that I caused,” the artist formerly known as Kanye West told Piers Morgan on his TalkTV show. “I feel like I caused hurt and confusion. And I’m sorry for the families of the people that had nothing to do with the trauma that I have been through, and that I used my platform, where you say hurt people hurt people, and I was hurt.”
The apology comes over a week after the rapper was locked from his Twitter and Instagram accounts for violating the platform’s policies after Ye tweeted that he was going to go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” referring to the military readiness condition “DEFCON.”
“I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” the rapper wrote in a now-deleted tweet. “The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”
The rapper further admitted that “it’s wrong to hold an apology hostage.” “I gotta let go of that and free myself of the trauma and say, ‘look, I’m just gonna give it all up to God right now,’” he continued, “and say to those families that I hurt, I really wanna give you guys a big hug and I’m sorry for hurting you with my comments.”
Despite the eventual apology, it was a belabored effort as Morgan grilled the artist on his harmful tweet, saying “I don’t think you understand the pain you’ve been causing with some of these comments.”
“God forbid one comment could cause people to feel any of the pain that my people have went though for years,” Ye responded sarcastically before Morgan noted that the artist’s comments were also a form a racism.
At this point in the interview, Morgan asked “Do you now regret saying ‘Death Con 3’ on Jewish people?” Are you sorry you said that?” to which Ye responded, “No, absolutely not.” “You should be,” Morgan retorted.