Kanye West paid a settlement to a former employee who claimed he used anti-Semitic language in the workplace, according to documents seen by NBC News.
Additionally, six people who have worked with West or assisted him in professional settings over the past five years said they heard the US rapper praise Adolf Hitler or mention conspiracy theories about the Jewish people.
Three of them are former employees or collaborators and said they recalled multiple instances of the West using anti-Semitic language. The other three people said they recalled a 2018 incident in which he made an anti-Semitic tirade in an interview at TMZ’s offices.
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Explanation: Kanye West’s anti-Semitism controversy
Their accounts, as well as the deal, suggest that West used that language for years in more cases than previously known to the public, well before his recent anti-Semitic comments online and in interviews came to light, causing him to miss a wave. of business offers.
Ryder Ripps, a conceptual artist who worked with the rapper from 2014 to 2018, said he repeatedly recalled when West spoke positively about Hitler and the Nazis or mentioned anti-Jewish conspiracies during meetings in 2018.
“He told me a lot of bullshit about, like, ‘the Nazis are good at propaganda,'” Ripps said, recalling several instances where West allegedly said, “‘Jews have codes.'”
Another former employee, who worked with West for three years, said he saw him praise Hitler and the Nazis in casual discussions.
“I feel like he’s like, like, looking around, like, seeing, like, how are people reacting?” said the former employee. “He said, ‘I even love Hitler’, and then, like, he would stop for reactions.”
The former employee said West praised Hitler in a 2018 meeting about a clothing project, saying he “had some good qualities” and that “he wasn’t bad at all.”
Ripps, who is Jewish, said he dismissed West’s comments at the time, but thought they “didn’t look that dangerous.”
But after West’s latest wave of statements, Ripps said he sees things differently, adding, “This is dangerous, disgusting and actually violent.
“With this pattern happening and with all of this doubling and tripling, it’s pretty obvious that this is some kind of disgusting, hateful and weird Nazi obsession.”
Ripps said he believed anti-Semitic people were encouraged following West’s remarks.
In the deal reviewed by NBC News, West paid a former employee who claimed to have witnessed more than one incident in which West praised Hitler or the Nazis in business meetings. West denied the former employee’s claims in the deal.
The former employee spoke on condition of anonymity, having signed a confidentiality agreement. NBC News, which is withholding details of the deal to protect the person’s anonymity, reviewed the deal, along with other correspondence and proof of payment the former employee claimed to have received.
West reps did not respond to requests for comment.
On Thursday, CNN reported that a company executive working for West had accused him of creating a hostile work environment through an “obsession” with Hitler and had received a deal. NBC News has not confirmed the transaction, which appears to be separate from the case of the former employee who shared the transaction documents with NBC News.
West recently made a number of remarks targeting Jews and referring to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, some of them on social media and in interviews.
The comments included repeated attacks on “Jewish media” – invoking the anti-Semitic claim that Jews disproportionately control the media – and Jews in general.
In an interview with Piers Morgan, West apologized “for the pain I have caused and the confusion I feel”.
But days later, he doubled down on his previous anti-Semitic remarks in an interview with MIT researcher Lex Fridman. On Friday, West went on to echo anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in a conversation with the paparazzi, pulling up a spreadsheet that he said highlighted Jewish media executives in red.
West’s recent observations have led to a cascade of consequences.
On October 20, Balenciaga broke off relations with West, who had opened the fashion house’s show in September.
On October 25, Adidas ended its partnership with West and its Yeezy brand, joining Gap, Foot Locker and other brands that have terminated their business relationship with him.
