Dude, Kanye Totally Defended R. Kelly, C'mon

By Mike Redmond | Celebrity | January 15, 2019 |

By Mike Redmond | Celebrity | January 15, 2019 |

Kanye West is an attention-starved idiot who has a history of publicly defending alleged sexual abusers like Bill Cosby and the rapey colostomy bag full of cold McDonald’s food currently occupying the Oval Office. So with that in mind, it’s really not a stretch of an imagination to conclude that Kanye was absolutely defending R. Kelly during a Sunday morning church service, which is exactly what TMZ did.

Kanye West says it’s still okay to play R. Kelly or Michael Jackson’s music — or so it seemed after Kanye’s Sunday service, but Kim Kardashian says that’s not what her husband meant to say.

Kanye seemed to refer to Kelly and MJ Sunday when he said, “They want art from the artist. But, anytime they do anything erratic, they just gonna pull up the full documentaries on him.”

“And then, they gonna come with the Michael documentary. We can enjoy all their music all we want.”

As much as the Kardashians love any form of publicity — and probably still enjoyed this latest round of headlines — even they’re not vapid enough to ignore how Kanye’s words could affect The Brand™. So Kim immediately went to work pretending her husband’s words meant something entirely different than what he obviously said.

I’m going to nip this in the bud right now. Kanye was speaking about his own experience of everyone quick to say they are cancelling him because of differences in opinion & not being perfect. The analogies were in context to his own experiences, not defending anyone else.

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) January 14, 2019

I want to make it very clear, he is not condoning anyone’s actions or unacceptable disgusting behavior. My husband’s words are being taken out of context due to timing.

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) January 14, 2019

Except there’s one small problem: Is Kanye the subject of a very public and prominent documentary that’s correctly tearing down an artist who should’ve been brought down years ago? Nope. No, he is not. Which makes it even weirder that TMZ tried to “exonerate” Kanye with video footage of the sermon that does the exact opposite.

For starters, the footage is clearly edited. There are plainly visible cuts despite it being labeled the “full video,” so apparently we’re just supposed to take TMZ’s word for it when they say Kanye doesn’t specifically mention R. Kelly. On top of that, Kanye absolutely references a “documentary,” and then pauses and laughs about how he wasn’t going to talk about this today. What the hell else could that mean?

But for the sake of argument, let’s say that Kanye isn’t talking about R. Kelly. At best, he’s saying it’s okay that Michael Jackson was a pedophile because he was an artist. At worst, Kanye is literally arguing that artists should be able to do whatever they want because it’s not their job to “act normal,” which is supremely f**ked up. I don’t care how talented you are or how many albums you sell, you do not get to rape people, especially children, ever.

As a father, you’d think Kanye would want to address his own words and make it abundantly clear that he doesn’t condone R. Kelly’s actions, at all, so let’s take a look at the most recent tweet on Ye’s Twitter.

One of my favorite of many things about what the Trump hat represents to me is that people can’t tell me what to do because I’m black

— ye (@kanyewest) January 1, 2019

Wow, goddammit. I mean, in fairness, it’s not like one of Kanye’s best friends is a sterling example of how to handle these situations.

Oh wait, he is.

To everyone telling me how courageous I am for appearing in the doc, it didn't feel risky at all. I believe these women and don't give a fuck about protecting a serial child rapist. Easy decision.

— John Legend (@johnlegend) January 4, 2019