Kanye West revealed Thursday that it took him more than a year to don a “Make America Great Again” hat and announce his support for President Trump.
The Grammy award-winning rapper, who claims he was diagnosed with a “mental condition” last year after abruptly canceling his national tour, told late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel he “didn’t have the confidence to take on the world and the possible backlash” for supporting the president when he first emerged from a hospital stay last fall.
“It took me a year and a half to have the confidence to stand up and put on the hat, no matter what the consequences were and what it represented to me – it’s not about policies ’cause I’m not a politician like that, but it represented overcoming fear and doing what you felt no matter what anyone said,” West explained.
In several tweets earlier this summer, West said his critics couldn’t prevent him from supporting the president, whom he met with in New York shortly after Trump was elected. The hip-hop icon later shared a picture of himself in a red “MAGA” hat and told TMZ in May that he was “castrated” for supporting the Republican leader.
But during his appearance Thursday, West said he has become immune to criticism from fellow celebrities and Trump’s political opponents.
“Liberals can’t bully me, news can’t bully me, the hip-hop community can’t bully me, they can’t bully me,” he told Kimmel. “Because at that point, if I’m afraid to be me, I’m no longer ‘Ye … And I actually quite enjoy when people are mad at me about certain things.”
West’s wife Kim Kardashian has also spoken positively about Trump in recent months, following the president’s decision to grant clemency to Alice Marie Johnson. The 63-year-old great-grandmother had been serving a life sentence in federal prison for a nonviolent drug offense since 1997.
Kardashian worked closely with presidential son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner on the pardon, meeting with Trump himself in the Oval Office in early June to discuss Johnson’s case.
