Kanye West Once ‘Wanted to Change His Name to a Swastika,’ Claims Far-Right’s Nick Fuentes

Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File

Avowed neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes shared a shocking story about rapper Kanye West, who has been widely accused of spreading anti-Semitic hate, while doing Wednesday night commentary of the Democratic National Convention on the hard-right video platform Rumble.

Fuentes, who West famously took to dinner at Mar-a-Lago with Donald Trump, has long made headlines for his far-right activism, hateful rhetoric, and leading the so-called “Groyper Army.”

“One day he called me up and I was in. What hotel? I would think I was at the Marriott in Santa Monica. I was at the Marriott in Santa Monica. I was chilling in bed. We were working all day and like December, I was working, over the phone. On a tweet. We’re writing a tweet. And I’m in bad. I’m on my laptop and he calls me up and he’s like, ‘Hey, what’s good? How’s it going? I’m like, hey, what’s going on? And he’s like, hey! He’s like, so what if I?” began Fuentes laughing.

“He tells me, I don’t even know if I should tell this story. And this is one of the recordings I have. Honestly, it was like the funniest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I was genuinely laughing so hard,” continued Fuentes, adding:

He told me he wanted to change his name to a swastika. Not making this up. So for anybody that says I made him a Nazi. That’s not true. He called me up out of the blue one afternoon and he’s like, so what if I changed my name to a swastika? And he starts laughing and I start dying? I’m like, that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. He’s like, right, right.

He goes, because then when they say my name, they’ll have to put a swastika on the chevron on TV. I it’s like, dude, I’m like. And I told them, I’m like. I’m like, I wouldn’t they just put the letters though. He goes, no, no, no. He goes, no, I’m not changing my name to the word. He goes the he said, he corrected me. He said his name wouldn’t be spelled ‘S.W.A.’ he says no, his name would be spelled swastika. It would be the symbol.

And I was. And he was serious. I was laughing my ass off. I was like, well, why don’t we think about that? I’m like, that’s kind of a big decision. I’m like, maybe we should hold off on that one. But that is no joke. He’s like, what if I? And that was one of the many ideas that he shelved. I was like, yeah, that’s probably for the better. That was after the Alex Jones interview, after which, by the way, people all the time, they’re like, oh, you endorse Kanye. It’s like, yep, that’s my president. That’s my president.

Fuentes and West appeared on Alex Jones’s InfoWars in December of 2022, after dining with Trump around that Thanksgiving holiday. On the program, West declared his affinity for Hitler, which is a regular talking point of Fuentes – who has denied the Holocaust and called for non-Christians to be executed.

Fuentes has long been active on the far-right in American politics and in the past has hosted a conference meant to be counter-programming to CPAC, which included speeches by Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ).

Fuentes’s “Groyper Army” is a loose network of alt-right figures who are vocal supporters of white nationalist ideals, often trolling mainstream conservative events to try and move conservatism more toward the far-right. Reports have recently tied a former aide in Gosar’s office to Fuentes and the Groypers.

Fuentes is known for fusing violent imagery into his neo-Nazi tirades. In January, he vowed to kill if Trump asked him to, “I am a soldier for Donald Trump. I am part of, I serve at the personal pleasure of Donald Trump, my supreme leader. I am part of the paramilitary wing of the Trump movement. I am part of the Revolutionary Guard. I do not answer to the Pentagon. I do not answer to the civilian government. I answer. I am the pretorian guard of Donald Trump. If Donald Trump ordered me to do an extrajudicial killing, I would perform it.”

Watch the clip above.