Ex-TMZ Staffer Claims Kanye West Said He Loves Hitler, Nazis Amid Rant About Slavery Being ‘A Choice’
Podcaster and former TMZ staffer Van Lathan claimed he watched Kanye West praise Nazis years ago when he confronted the rapper over his shocking statements to the celebrity news outlet.
It was back in 2018 when West — also known as Ye — joined TMZ, where he espoused his support for Donald Trump, mused on the idea of freedom, then described slavery as a “choice” that Black people accepted for themselves in America for hundreds of years. West’s comments were a media shocker at the time, and he was confronted by Lathan in the TMZ newsroom.
West is currently in the news for multiple instances of bizarre statements, anti-Semitic threats and hate speech. The blow-up has been punctuated by allegations that Fox News’ Tucker Carlson concealed West’s most outrageous remarks in a deceitful attempt to portray the rapper as a reasonable figure during their interview, rather than mentally unstable.
According to Lathan, TMZ also hid West’s anti-Jewish outbursts during his visit.
On Tuesday, Lathan discussed West’s social media bans on his Higher Learning podcast with his co-host, Rachel Lindsay. As Lindsay denounced the “cult-like” attempts by people to excuse West’s hateful conduct, Lathan said “I’ve already heard him say that stuff before at TMZ.”
I knew that that was in him because when came to TMZ, he said that stuff and they took it out of the interview…If you look at what I said at TMZ, it goes from me saying like, ‘Hey Kanye, there’s real-life, real-world implication to everything that you just said there.’ What I say after that — if I can remember, it’s been a long time — was, ’12 million people actually died because of Nazism and Hitler and all of that stuff,’ and then I move on to talk about what he said about slavery, it was this whole big thing. The ’12 million people ‘ part is not in there because they took it out. And the reason they took it out is because it wouldn’t have made sense unless they kept in Kanye saying that he loved Hitler and the Nazis, which he said when he was at TMZ. He said something like, ‘I love Hitler, I love Nazis.’ Something to that effect. And they took it out of the interview for whatever reason, it wasn’t my decision.
Lathan added that when West said those alleged pro-Nazi statements at TMZ, one of the outlet’s producers called him out and said “I’m Jewish and that is offensive to me, what you just said.” Lathan insisted it was possible to detect the edit in TMZ’s clip, and that encounter with West caused him to assess that the rapper’s current controversy is no surprise to him.
Watch above (start at 16:22) via Higher Learning.
