Kanye West, who officially changed his name to Ye, always seems to be in the middle of some controversy or other. Ye makes headlines as much for his talents as he does for his perceived tantrums, breakdowns, feuds, and social media rants. Some would argue that he makes more headlines for being controversial than he does for anything having to do with his talents and that his controversies outweigh his accomplishments. Unless, of course, you consider staying in the headlines to remain relevant is actually one of his talents. After all, he seems to be in no danger of disappearing from the celebrity news cycle anytime soon.
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The thing is, if we are being fair, there is no denying that the artist formerly known as Kanye West is talented and successful. He has won 22 Grammys so far, making him one of the top Grammy winners in history. He’s also done well for himself as a fashion designer. His Yeezy sneakers consistently sell out. But fair is fair, meaning that we can’t deny that plenty of Kanye’s public shenanigans are hard to ignore. For a long time, his behavior made no sense to many. Then in 2016, he was placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold, and in 2018, he revealed on his album Ye that he had been diagnosed as having bipolar disorder.
When seen through the context of his bipolar diagnosis, his seemingly controversial and erratic behavior isn’t all that hard to understand, because bipolar disorder is a lifelong condition that can cause extreme changes in how a person behaves. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, “Bipolar disorder (formerly called manic-depressive illness or manic depression) is a mental disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, concentration, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks.” Keep that in mind as we chronicle what have been some of Kanye’s most controversial moments.
He did not mince words when speaking about former President George W. Bush.
During a telethon to raise money for Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Kanye was on air alongside actor Mike Myers when he said his infamous line that "George Bush doesn't care about Black people." Kanye was referring to George W. Bush's failures in helping people affected by the storm.
Kanye dressed as Jesus for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in 2006.
The "Jesus Walks" rapper wore a crown of thorns and had cuts all over his face for the cover, and people were not happy about him comparing himself to the religious figure. “You want me to be great,” he told Rolling Stone. “But you don’t ever want me to say I’m great?”
Kanye interrupted Taylor Swift at the 2009 Video Music Awards.
In one of the most infamous pop culture moments in history, Kanye got up onstage when Taylor was giving her speech after winning in the Best Female Video category for her "You Belong With Me" music video. It was one of those moments that if you were watching, you were like, "Is this really happening?" It really was happening. The rapper said Beyoncé's "Single Ladies" video deserved the award instead.
He did end up apologizing for interrupting Taylor Swift.
He did apologize in all capitals for "TAKING AWAY HER MOMENT." Even though he apologized for basically stealing her moment at the VMAs, he still held to his official point that Beyoncé's video was the best. The man is entitled to have an opinion, and he most certainly is opinionated.
He lost his cool at the 2006 MTV Europe Music Awards.
The Taylor Swift moment wasn't the first time the musician had a bone to pick with award shows. At the EMAs in 2006, he got onstage to dispute his loss in the Best Video category against Justice vs. Simian's "We Are Your Friends" music clip. "If I don't win, the award show loses credibility," the rapper shouted into the mic at the time.
In 2008, Kanye was arrested after a scuffle with a photographer at LAX.
Kanye was with his longtime friend and then-manager Don C, who grabbed the photographer's very expensive camera and smashed it by throwing it on the floor. “Why can’t we talk to you? I mean, why?” the photographer is heard to say in video that was posted of the incident. “What you’re trying to do is get me in trouble,” Kanye replies, “so I have to pay you $250,000.”
He featured his future wife Kim Kardashian topless in a music video.
The controversial couple were on a motorcycle together for the "Bound 2" music video in 2013, and Kim was totally topless. Watching the video is an exercise in being uncomfortable; there's just something icky about it. The video was filmed before Kim and Kanye were married.
He caused quite the controversy when he dropped the video for 'Famous.'
For the 2016 music video, Kanye had lifelike naked figures of Taylor Swift, Donald Trump, Kim Kardashian, Amber Rose, Bill Cosby, Chris Brown, and Rihanna all lying together. The rapper mostly caught heat for putting Chris and Rihanna together after their domestic violence incident. But can you imagine having a realistic figure of you featured naked in a video without being asked? It seems wrong.
Ye took credit for Taylor Swift's fame in his song 'Famous.'
"I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex / Why? I made that b—- famous (God damn) I made that b—- famous," he said on the track. Taylor fired back at him during her Best Album of the Year acceptance speech at the 2016 Grammys. "As the first woman to win album of the year twice, I want to say to all the young women out there, there are going to be people along the way who will try to undercut your success or take credit for your accomplishments or your fame," she said.
He once accidentally hit his head on a street sign and blamed the paparazzi.
Kanye bumped his head on a street sign while he was ducking his head to hide from photographers. After the accident, Kanye lunged at a photographer for taking pics of him after he was hurt. It is kind of mean to keep photographing someone when they just bonked their head. Also, it has to be distracting to have all those people coming at you with cameras all the time.
Kanye met with President Donald Trump for the first time after the 2016 election.
After Trump won the 2016 presidential election in November, the rapper met with him at the Trump Tower in New York City the following month. They then posed for photos in the building's lobby, and the meeting caused quite a stir. No one could figure out why Kanye would support Trump.
Kanye has a difficult relationship with the paparazzi.
There’s a video where a photographer is basically telling Kanye that he’s a big fan. “I appreciate that but don’t talk,” Kanye responds. “I don’t want to hear paparazzi talk to me or anybody I know.” Kanye then proceeds to tell this person to spread the word that paparazzi are not to talk to Kanye or anyone he knows—as if that's ever going to happen.
Religious people were not pleased with Kanye West's 2013 album title.
Kanye named his sixth studio album Yeezus, and he even had a song titled "I Am a God" on the project. People were not pleased. But is that really surprising? How many religious folks are going to really get behind someone who unironically compares themselves to Jesus?
Kanye said he was running for president in 2020.
As if having Taylor Swift hand him the MTV Video Music Awards' Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award in 2015 wasn't weird enough, Kanye then announced he was running for the presidency in 2020. He did end up running in 2020, and got 60,000 votes.
His feud with Jay-Z was a heartbreaking moment in hip-hop.
During his Saint Pablo Tour in 2016, the "Ultralight Beam" rapper unleashed several onstage rants against his former friend and colleague, Jay-Z. During one show in Seattle, Kanye said he was upset that Jay never reached out after Kim Kardashian was robbed at gunpoint in Paris. “Don’t call me after the robbery and say, ‘How you feelin?’ You wanna know how I’m feeling? Come by the house … Bring the kids by the house, like we’re brothers,” he said, revealing that Beyoncé and Jay's daughter Blue Ivy had never played with North West.
Kanye began sporting the Make America Great Again hat Donald Trump created for his presidential campaign.
Kanye first shared a selfie of himself wearing it in April 2018. The hat has become a symbol for the Republican Party and for Trump in particular, not to mention that some argue it is proudly worn by many racist Trump supporters. It took people by surprise to see someone wearing it who was always so outspoken about the mistreatment of Black people in the US.
Kanye continued expressing his support for Trump on Twitter.
Kanye backed up his support for the president with various tweets and even got a response from Trump himself. He went so far as to write that "the mob" couldn't make him "not love" Trump because they are "both dragon energy." This is one of those instances when it's hard to understand what exactly Kanye is trying to communicate, and it makes you wonder if he's having some kind of mental health episode.
Kanye landed himself in the hottest of waters after saying he believes that 400 years of slavery sounds like 'a choice.'
People were enraged at Kanye's comments during a visit to TMZ where he said that 400 years of slavery sounded like a choice to him. How can history and the effects of that history be a choice? Many of his fans began turning their backs on him after that.
Kanye had a meeting with Donald Trump at the White House.
The rapper headed to Washington, DC, in October 2018 to meet with Trump, and the pair discussed issues affecting minorities in the US. Kanye also told the politician that the MAGA hat made him feel like a superhero. "It was something about when I put this hat on, it made me feel like Superman," Kanye said. "You made a Superman cape for me, also, as someone who looks up to you … looks up to American industry guys."
Kanye said he was stepping away from politics, but some believed it was too little, too late.
Not long after his effusive pro-Trump visit to the White House, Kanye made the announcement via Twitter on October 30, 2018, that he was stepping away from politics after realizing that he was being used by Republicans to push their agenda—an agenda that he didn't fully believe in.
But is he really done with politics?
It sure didn't seem like it, because on July 4, 2020, he announced via Twitter that he was running for president. “We must now realize the promise of America by trusting God, unifying our vision and building our future. I am running for president of the United States! #2020VISION,” he wrote.
Then on July 19, 2020, he held a campaign rally that made no sense.
The rally made no sense for a bunch of reasons. To begin with, it seemed very poorly organized. And the sound? What sound? For someone who is in the music industry, the sound setup at this thing was pretty nonexistent. Then he started talking about how he and Kim had considered getting an abortion when they found out she was pregnant with North. He even broke down in tears about it. It's actually heartbreaking to watch, because he is clearly not OK.
After the rally he spent too much time on Twitter.
He must have gotten some kind of reaction from then-wife Kim Kardashian and his extended family, who were in California while he was in Wyoming, because he went off on Twitter. He kept posting things about Kim and her mother, Kris Jenner. He also said that they were trying to have him “locked up,” seemingly referring to having him seek psychiatric help and perhaps go to a facility to get treatment. He deleted most of the things he tweeted, but they live on in screenshots. Kim normally would not address Kanye’s public outbursts, but she did that time in a rather lengthy statement via Instagram.
Eventually, he apologized to Kim for his behavior.
On July 25, 2020, he apologized publicly to Kim via Twitter, writing: "I would like to apologize to my wife Kim for going public with something that was a private matter. I did not cover her like she has covered me. To Kim I want to say I know I hurt you. Please forgive me. Thank you for always being there for me.”
But Kim got tired of always being there for him.
Rumors circulated that the two were headed for divorce and Kim confirmed those rumors by taking legal action to dissolve the marriage. On February 19, 2021, after close to seven years of marriage, Kim filed for divorce and petitioned for joint legal and physical custody of their four children.
Kim reportedly started dating Pete Davidson and Ye was not happy about it.
Kim hosted Saturday Night Live on October 7, 2021, and shared on onscreen kiss with SNL castmember Pete Davidson. That onscreen kiss led to some IRL life handholding and rumored dating for Kim and Pete. Kanye was quite vocal about his disapproval of Kim dating Pete and started calling Pete “Skete” online.
He even rapped about Pete on the song 'Eazy.'
On the song, Ye can be heard rapping, “God saved me from this crash, just so I could beat Pete Davidson’s a–.” In another song called “City of Gods,” Ye raps that Pete should “thank” him for letting him “have” Kim. Yikes!
Oh, and he bought the house across the street from Kim’s house.
People made a big deal about Kanye buying the property across the street from Kim’s place, but he has a perfectly rational explanation for it. “My solace comes from seeing my kids and getting a solid schedule. That’s why I even got the house. [It was] flipped into there was something wrong with me getting a house next to my kids,” he said in an interview with Hollywood Unlocked
He cut Kudi Cudi for being friends with Pete.
On February 12, 2022, Kanye posted a since-deleted photo that explained why Kid Cudi will not be included in his Donda 2 album. "Just so everyone knows Cudi will not be on Donda because he's friends with you know who. We all speak in Billie language now," Ye shared. And by “Billie,” he meant Billie Eilish.
Wait, what does Billie Eillish have to do with any of this?
Kanye is also in a feud with Billie Eillish because he thinks that she dissed Travis Scott over the Astroworld tragedy during a show when she stopped to help a fan. And now Ye wants her to apologize to Travis. She responded saying: “Literally never said a thing about travis. Was just helping a fan." Hence his whole “speak in Billie language” comment.
Still, Kanye wants Kim back.
Even though Kanye briefly dated actress Julia Fox, he still publicly declares that he wants Kim back. On Super Bowl Sunday 2022, Ye spent a lot of time on Instagram letting anyone who was interested know that he still loves Kim and wants his family back. He posted so much he was even trending on Twitter above #SuperBowl. Most of his posts have since been removed.
