Although he’s a longtime supporter of President Donald Trump, Kanye West claims there was one reason why he had to miss the world leader’s second inauguration.
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TMZ reported that during the Grammys 2025 after-party, Kanye West was speaking to Justin LaBoy on his Respectfully Justin podcast and revealed his “censorship stigma” kept him from attending the presidential event.
“I was gonna go to the inauguration, but they told me I had to write another apology, saying yeah, that I wasn’t… What’s the word?” West explained. “Antisemitic.”
Kanye West previously issued an apology to the Jewish community after his antisemitic outbursts while promoting his Vultures album. His apology, which has since been deleted, was written entirely in Hebrew. It was posted through his Instagram account on Christmas Day 2023.
“I sincerely apologize to the Jewish community for any unintended outburst caused by my words or actions,” he wrote. “It was not my intention to hurt or disrespect, and I deeply regret any pain I may have caused. I am committed to starting with myself and learning from this experience to ensure greater sensitivity and understanding in the future.”
Donald Trump previously referred to Kanye West as being “complicated” before praising the rapper’s character.
“He’s a really nice guy,” Trump said in August 2024. “But he can get some people into trouble. He’s got a good heart—he does, he does, but he’s complicated.”
Kanye West Previously Claimed That He Asked Donald Trump To Be His 2024 Presidential Campaign Running Mate
In 2022, Kanye West claimed he had asked Donald Trump to be his running mate for the 2024 presidential campaign. In a since-deleted video on X (formerly Twitter), the rapper mentioned the campaign during a meeting with Trump at his famous Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.
“I think the thing that Trump was most perturbed about, me asking him to be my vice president,” West stated in the video, per The Hill. “I think that was like lower on the list of things that caught him off-guard.”
West then stated that Trump screamed at him about his presidential run. “When Trump started basically screaming at me at the table telling me I was going to lose — I mean has that ever worked for anyone in history,” he said. “I’m like hold on, hold on, hold on, Trump, you’re talking to Ye.”
Kanye West previously launched a bid for the White House during the 2020 Presidential election. Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020. In July 2024, Biden announced he was dropping out of the race. His running mate, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, ran against Trump.
Trump won 77,284,118 votes, while Harris secured 74,999,166 votes.