Kanye West blames ‘Hennessy’ for anti-Semitic tweet

Rapper Kanye West has admitted that he was drunk when he posted a tweet announcing that he would go “death con 3” on Jewish people, claiming that “demons” took over his mind after he drank Hennessy cognac.

The rapper’s run-ins with the Jewish community began in 2022, when he announced on X that he was going “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE,” apparently a reference to ‘Defcon 3’ on the US military’s readiness scale. West, who also goes by the name Ye, then appeared on Infowars, telling host Alex Jones that he “likes Hitler” and blames “the Jewish media” for tarnishing the reputation of the Nazis. 

In a newly released interview with conservative pundit Candace Owens, Ye claimed that he wasn’t in his right mind when he wrote the offensive tweet.

“I definitely was drinking when I put up the death con tweet,” he told Owens. “You know whose, I wanna say alcohol, I had inside me? Hennessy. Hennessy. It turns us gray. Literally, the demons [come in].”

“If you drink you become a different person,” Owens responded. “It’s like a spirit has taken over you. That’s why they call it ‘spirits’.”

Ye followed up his “death con” tweet with a slew of anti-Semitic posts on various social media platforms, including an image of a Swastika intertwined with a Star of David, and screenshots of a text message exchange with disgraced rapper Diddy, whom he accused of threatening him on behalf of unnamed “Jewish people.”

Ye’s posts resulted in him losing a lucrative sponsorship deal with Adidas and being banned from most social media platforms. In a statement posted in Hebrew to his Instagram account last year, the rapper apologized to the Jewish community, stating that it was not his “intention to hurt or demean,” and that he was “committed to making amends and promoting unity.”

Asked why he never admitted to being drunk at the time of the tweet before, Ye told Owens that doing so would “discredit” anything he said afterwards.

Owens has also been accused of anti-Semitism before, and was fired from the Daily Wire – a conservative news site – earlier this year for accusing Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza, and claiming that a “small ring” of “political Jews” in the US “use the fact that they are Jewish to shield themselves from any criticism” 

Owens’ remarks sparked a public feud with the Daily Wire’d Jewish co-founder, Ben Shapiro, who called them “disgraceful.”