Kanye Continues Dangerous Anti-Abortion Campaign, Talks GAP, Says He's Hiring Paparazzi in Nick Cannon Interview

Nick Cannon shared the first part of his interview with Kanye West, whose presidential campaign continues to be accused of using deceptive practices.

Kanye West
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Image via Getty/Marc Piasecki/GC Images

Kanye West

Though, once again, the last thing anyone needs right now is more of this type of thing, Nick Cannon has shared a 44-minute interview with increasingly failed presidential hopeful Kanye West.

From the jump, West lays claim to both "a tone of morality" and "a tone of spirituality." From there, he claims he began reading the Holy Bible back in 2016 during a hospitalization.

"God brought me to my knees multiple times," West, whose presidential efforts have been a frequent subject of accusations of deception, said. "The first time that I was put in the hospital in 2016, I actually started reading the bible. That was part of what god hit me with. You know, god has a calling on all of us and he uses us in different ways."

West then shifted into an apparent response to those skeptical of his brand of alleged Christianity before pivoting to a criticism of Forbes, a popular finance-based publication that notably receives zero mentions in biblical text.

"I'm not gonna lie to you, I like being cool," West said. "I didn't go into an environment to come off uncool. Why would I wanna come off uncool if I've been telling Forbes for three years to put me on the list and they intentionally snubbed me off the list? I feel like Forbes kept snubbing me because they wanted to say, 'We can't show you a person being successful that didn't do it the exact way that we told you you need to do it in order to be successful.'"

West then recalled the origin of his decision to intentionally antagonize atheists who attended his Sunday Service gatherings. As West explained it, he relished in being able to rub Christianity in people's faces, which one would presume isn't really the point of a truly genuine message of love.

"I was snubbed by a magazine but I was recognized by god," West said around six minutes in. "I would do Sunday Service and there would be atheists who would come and tell me 'Well, maybe you shouldn't mention Jesus' name so much.' And that's all I need to hear. I was like 'Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!' Thank you for inciting the riot."

The Sunday Service push, at least according to West, resulted in the spending of $50 million in 2019 alone. 

"I spent every dime that I have from marketing from Yeezy on Sunday Service," West claimed. "Every dollar I had. I spent $50 million last year on Sunday Service."

After some more talk on net worth, surely a biblical concept, West shared some quick thoughts on Virgil Abloh's link-up with Louis Vuitton as well as his own recently announced GAP endeavor. The latter, West said, resulted in the brand being the subject of a fleet of non-compete clauses in contracts. "Right when I went to GAP, GAP got put on the non-compete for everything," he said.

Jumping back to the topic of Abloh, West claimed there was an emotional impact to the Louis Vuitton move that was similar to how he felt when he recently made widely condemned comments which were co-signed by the far right to further their efforts at demonizing a woman's right to choose.

"Back to, like, when Virgil went to Louis, he had to break me down, bro," West said about 18 minutes in. "And this is what I love about me crying about my daughter and this is what I love about people ridiculing me about it. Because I need all that. I need all that smoke because I got a big head."

Later, West mentioned a longstanding idea he's had about paparazzi involving, somewhat troublingly, buying them all out so he can be in charge of selecting the photos himself. "I know it's down because of [COVID-19]," he said about 28 minutes in. "I am hiring. I'll buy all the paparazzi companies. I wanna pick all the photos. It's always been an idea of mine."

Unfortunately, West then turned the conversation to the topic of abortion by once again sharing the sort of reckless messaging that’s seen him be rightfully condemned by women and advocacy groups for contributing to a dangerous stigma. West again compared abortion to "Black genocide," a description Planned Parenthood noted back in July was both "offensive and infantilizing."

As for any purported material he's been citing to make his indeed offensive and infantilizing remarks about a woman's right to choose, West said the information came from a higher power while comparing his insistence on this topic to his infamous Taylor Swift incident at the 2009 VMAs.

"Right now, god is giving me the information and he ain't give me no other information. … So that means he wants me to say this now," West said. "If god ain't want me to run on stage and say Beyoncé had the best video, he wouldn't have sat me in the front row. I would've been sitting in the back and they would've made it the first award and he wouldn't have made it so ridiculous because I had never heard of this person before and 'Single Ladies' is one of the greatest videos of all time. And I was only drinking Hennessy because I didn't want to go to the awards show because it was a set-up."

In fact, West added around the 36-minute mark, his purported political party name—the Birthday Party—is meant to be an anti-abortion reference. Asked by Cannon about the criticism from those who point out that perhaps West shouldn't speak on issues that are focused on women, West lamented what he apparently believes is some sort of concerted effort to "take the male opinion out of any conversation."

You can totally avoid the full video of part 1 of the West x Cannon discussion by scrolling past the video below:

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Around the time the interview started being teased on social media, fans who haven't been turned off by all this were giving this attention:

More important, however, is this reminder on just how dangerous West's abortion messaging is. For more, please revisit the statement Nia Martin-Robinson—Planned Parenthood's director of Black Leadership and Engagement—gave to Billboard back in July:

"Black women are free to make our own decisions about our bodies and pregnancies, and want and deserve to have access to the best medical care available. Any insinuation that abortion is Black genocide is offensive and infantilizing. The real threat to Black communities’ safety, health, and lives stems from lack of access to quality, affordable health care, police violence and the criminalization of reproductive health care by anti-abortion opposition. At Planned Parenthood, we trust and we stand with Black women who have, and continue to lead the charge when it comes to the health, rights, and bodily autonomy of those in their communities."

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