Kanye West has taken out a full-page advert to apologise for his past antisemitic remarks.
The rapper issued the lengthy apology to both Jewish and Black communities following a series of antisemitic and racist outbursts over the years.
Published in The Wall Street Journal on Monday, the apology saw Kanye attribute some of his past behaviour to a car accident 25 years ago that he claimed damaged his frontal lobe.
“Twenty-five years ago, I was in a car accident that broke my jaw and caused injury to the right frontal lobe of my brain,” he wrote. “At the time, the focus was on the visible damage – the fracture, the swelling, and the immediate physical trauma. The deeper injury, the one inside my skull, went unnoticed.”
Kanye went on to claim that he “lost touch with reality” after his 2016 bipolar disorder diagnosis and kept trying to “ignore the problem”.
“I said and did things I deeply regret. Some of the people I love the most, I treated the worst,” he penned. “You endured fear, confusion, humiliation, and the exhaustion of trying to have someone who was, at times, unrecognisable. Looking back, I became detached from my true self.”
He continued, “In that fractured state, I gravitated toward the most destructive symbol I could find, the swastika, and even sold T-shirts bearing it.”
The 48-year-old explained that his mental health disorder led to “poor judgment and reckless behaviour that oftentimes feels like an out-of-body experience”.
“I regret and am deeply mortified by my actions in that state, and am committed to accountability, treatment, and meaningful change,” he wrote. “It does not excuse what I did though. I am not a Nazi or an antisemite. I love Jewish people.”
The Stronger hitmaker also apologised to the Black community for letting them down when they got him through “all of the highs and lows and the darkest of times”.
Kanye has sparked controversy with his antisemitic comments on and off since 2022. The scandal reached a fever pitch last year when he started selling T-shirts bearing the swastika.
The musician, also known as Ye, is gearing up to release his next album, Belly, on Friday.
