Jimmy Kimmel and Kanye West had a lot to discuss Thursday night — it’s the first time the rapper has appeared on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” in about five years, since they settled their feud.
“Were you ever concerned about her being alone in the Oval Office with President Trump?” Kimmel asked.
West laughed. “Well, he is a player,” he said, as the studio audience laughed and applauded.
“People got really mad when you were — well, some people were very happy when you said you liked President Trump,” Kimmel said. “Do you think he is a good president?”
West paused before launching into a long response. It didn’t really answer the question, but Kimmel assured him he could respond however he wanted.
“As a musician, African American, guy out in Hollywood, all these different things — you know, everyone around me tried to pick my candidate for me. And then told me every time I said liked Trump that I couldn’t say it out loud or my career would be over,” West said. “I’d get kicked out of the black community because blacks, we are supposed to have a monolithic thought, we can only be Democrats and all.”
West said after he first revealed he liked Trump in 2016 (he told a concert crowd shortly after the election that he would have voted for Trump, had he voted at all), he didn’t have the strength to take on the backlash. But about 18 months later, he found “the confidence to stand up and put on the hat,” regardless of the consequences. Apparently he meant this literally — this past April, he was photographed wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat.
“It represented overcoming fear and doing what you felt, no matter what anyone said,” West said. “Liberals can’t bully me; news can’t bully me; the hip-hop community, they can’t bully me. Because at that point, if I’m afraid to be me, I’m no longer Ye. That’s what makes Ye. And I actually quite enjoy when people actually are mad at me about certain things.”
“You must enjoy it, yeah,” Kimmel cracked.
.@KanyeWest! #Ye #Pablo #Yeezy pic.twitter.com/jd7QZiJlD7
— Jimmy Kimmel Live (@JimmyKimmelLive) August 10, 2018
“Ye” is also the title of West’s latest album, which he was technically on Kimmel’s show to promote — so the host asked about a couple of tracks, including “Violent Crimes.”
“You’re imagining your daughter as an adult dating and men looking at her,” Kimmel said, describing the message of the song. “You’re very, very worked up about this. Prematurely, some might say. Do you think about that? You think that far ahead?”
West, who has two young daughters with Kardashian, agreed. “Oh, I think lifetimes and lifetimes ahead.”
“And you actually are imagining like, guys objectifying — do you feel like your attitude towards women has changed since having daughters?” Kimmel wondered.
West thought about this. “Nah, I still look at PornHub,” he told Kimmel.
Kimmel just laughed along with the audience. West began to explain further and Kimmel cut him off, assuring him, “You don’t have to go into that.”
“I mean, what’s the point of being Kanye West if you can’t?” West said.
Kimmel quickly asked about another song, “I Thought About Killing You,” which is about mental health. It led to a brief, serious discussion about suicide.
“When you’re an artist and you’re creative and you want to give so much to the world against all odds, there’s times when you can go into that place,” West said.
West also brought up his own mental health battles, including his hospitalization in 2016. His album cover for “Ye” reads, “I hate being bi-polar it’s awesome.”
Kanye West's album cover for ‘Ye’ was shot yesterday with his own iPhone hours before his album release. pic.twitter.com/GJkvf0u2gF
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) June 1, 2018
“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, like, taking medication,” West said. “I think it’s good when I had my first complete blackout at age 5, my mom didn’t fully medicate me. Because I might have never been Ye.”
The interview included many more topics, including West’s TMZ interview this year, fashion, history and how West believes we’re all unpaid actors living in a simulation. (Long story.)
Only one question appeared to throw West for a loop. During the first segment of the interview, West said when he sees people criticize Trump, he thinks, “Why not try love?” West added that he wished everyone could “defuse this nuclear bomb of hate that we’re in as a society by thinking of everyone as our family.”
“That’s a beautiful thought,” Kimmel said. “But just in literal terms, there are families being torn apart at the border of this country. There are literally families being torn apart as a result of what this president is doing. And I think that we cannot forget that. Whether we like his personality or not, his actions are really what matter.”
Kimmel continued: “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?”
There was a pause as West thought about this.
“Why don’t we take a break,” Kimmel offered, as he threw to commercial. They never returned to the subject.
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