Watch Kanye West on Jimmy Kimmel

October 10, 2013


Kanye West appeared on Wednesday night's episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, greeting Kimmel with an awkward half-hug. Kimmel attempted a few niceties before getting into the heart of the matter, asking, "Is that, uh, a new grill you have there?" to a stony response. Kimmel then admitted to not having seen Kanye's entire interview with Zane Lowe before spoofing it with child actors. "Yeah, that's what I thought," replied West. On the public perception of their public spat being planned, West stated, "I've never done a publicity stunt in my life... I don't follow rules of normal celebrity." Kimmel half-joked, "I don't know if you know this: a lot of people think you're a jerk." For much of the interview, West avoided direct eye contact, addressing the audience rather than Kimmel. "I'm a creative genius, and there's no other way to word it. I know you're not supposed to say that," he said. He continued to derisively talk about false humility and ass-kissing before railing against the Hollywood Walk of Fame committee for recently denying Kim Kardashian a star: "There's no way a Kim Kardashian shouldn't have a star on the walk of fame."

After an intermission in which Josh Groban dramatically sang Kanye tweets, Kimmel admitted he didn't find his show's Kanye spoof that funny: "I'd give it a five." West finally cracked a smile, saying of his negative response to the skit on Twitter, "I just thought it was so funny that I was saying this in real time, in real life." West then launched into a monologue on racism, classism, old money snobbery, and conspicuous consumption versus taste. "There's no black guy at the end of the runway in Paris," he lamented, talking about being pigeonholed as merely a rapper (and Kim merely a reality star). "All we wanna do is make awesome stuff. I refuse to follow those rules that society has set up and the way that they can control people with low self-esteem... It's about truth, it's about information, it's about awesomeness, and the only luxury is time." Referring to refusing to allow himself to be bullied, he closed with: "Never think I'm not from Chicago for one second."

In September, Kanye lashed out against Kimmel on Twitter, after Kimmel spoofed Kanye's interview with Zane Lowe. He's since deleted the tweets, in which he called Kimmel a "MANIPULATIVE MEDIA MOTHERFUCKER," spawned the hashtag #NODISRESPECTTOBENAFFLECK (which Kimmel called "the greatest tag ever hashed"), and compared him to Spongebob. Read the full rant here.

Watch Kanye West on Jimmy Kimmel