Kanye Says Apology To Jewish & Black Communities For Controversial Remarks Wasn’t A PR Move: These Remorseful Feelings Were So Heavy On My Heart

Kanye West

Kanye Says Apology To Jewish & Black Communities For Controversial Remarks Wasn’t A PR Move: These Remorseful Feelings Were So Heavy On My Heart

#KanyeWest’s change of heart has nothing to do with PR, according to the rapper.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, Kanye, aka #Ye, addressed the full-page apology he published in The Wall Street Journal, pushing back against critics who suggested it was a calculated career move. Kanye insisted the letter “isn’t about reviving my commerciality,” stressing that the move was deeply personal rather than a strategy tied to business or his upcoming album Bully, set to drop on Friday (January 30). Kanye said that the “remorseful feelings” behind the apology were “so heavy on my heart and weighing on my spirit,” and added that he owes a “huge apology once again for everything that I said that hurt the Jewish and Black communities in particular,” emphasizing that “all of it went too far.”

The apology itself was published as a full-page Wall Street Journal ad headlined “To Those I’ve Hurt,” in which Kanye publicly grappled with years of controversial conduct, particularly amid what he described as untreated manic episodes. In the apology, he acknowledged that during those periods he “lost touch with reality” and made comments and actions he now deeply regrets. He also addressed the harmful symbols and rhetoric he once embraced, writing that he had “gravitated toward the most destructive symbol I could find, the swastika, and even sold T-shirts bearing it,” but clarified plainly, “I am not a Nazi or an antisemite. I love Jewish people.”

Only time will reveal whether #Kanye has truly turned a new page.