Kanye West recently responded to his full-page apology letter that was advertised in the Wall Street Journal, denying reports that it is a PR meant to promote the release of his upcoming Bully album.
As previously reported by Face2Face Africa, West, 48, took out a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal to apologize to the Black and Jewish communities for his past actions and comments.
Kanye came under intense scrutiny a few years ago when he openly expressed his support for Nazi Germany’s leader and dictator, Adolf Hitler. Besides making several antisemitic comments on social media as time went by, he also went as far as selling T-shirts emblazoned with swastikas on his website. In 2025, Kanye went as far as releasing a controversial song titled, Heil Hitler.
Prior to these controversies, Kanye also drew the ire of the Black community when he suggested that slavery was a choice.
But in his apology letter, the College Dropout rapper blamed his actions on a brain injury that he says severely impacted his mental health and caused his bipolar type-1 diagnosis.
Despite his past antisemitic comments, Kanye, in the letter, denied being a “Nazi or an antisemite.” “I love Jewish people,” he stated.
Vanity Fair emailed Kanye some questions about his apology and past antisemitic comments, to which he answered. The Can’t Tell Me Nothing rapper, however, refused to answer some questions, including those regarding “where his antisemitic sentiments may have originated from and why, and how he feels about Fuentes dancing to ‘Heil Hitler.’”
Responding to the reports that his apology was a PR gimmick that was meant to enable him release new music and manage his businesses like before, Kanye emphasized that he was still doing good despite the controversies he stoked. He said his apology wasn’t about “reviving my commerciality,” as he was remorseful.
“It’s my understanding that I was in the top 10 most listened-to artists overall in the US on Spotify in 2025, and last week and most days as well. My upcoming album, Bully, is currently one of the most anticipated pre-saves of any album on Spotify too. My 2007 album, Graduation, was also the most listened-to and streamed hip-hop album of 2025,” the 48-year-old highlighted.
“This, for me, as evidenced by the latter, isn’t about reviving my commerciality. This is because these remorseful feelings were so heavy on my heart and weighing on my spirit. I owe a huge apology once again for everything that I said that hurt the Jewish and Black communities in particular. All of it went too far. I look at wreckage of my episode and realize that this isn’t who I am. As a public figure, so many people follow and listen to my every word. It’s important that they realize and understand what side of history that I want to stand on. And that is one of love and positivity.”
Kanye was also asked when he started to regret some of his public statements and actions. “Not until I was out of the episode and in treatment did the reality set in of what I did while I was disconnected from my true self,” he replied.
Kanye was then asked if he has “treated people” in his “personal life in any ways” that he regrets and how he has made amends.
“Every day that I wake up, it’s a checklist of everything that I said—at least what I can recall—while in a bipolar episode. All of the family bonds, deep relationships, and lifelong friendships that I worked so hard to build over so many years were all tarnished by all of the horrible statements that I made so impulsively,” he responded.
In his apology letter, Kanye disclosed that he experienced a manic episode in 2025. He was asked about that experience and how he dealt with the people who tried to intervene.
“When you’re manic, you really don’t think that you’re sick. You think that everyone else is deeply overreacting,” he told Vanity Fair. “You feel like you’re seeing the world so much more clearly on things, when in reality you’re losing your grip entirely. That’s what it felt like at that time.”
Kanye also touched on seeking treatment and his experience with that. “Toward the end of my four-month-long manic episode, my medication was changed. In that shift, the antipsychotic drug took me into a really deep depressive episode,” he disclosed.
“My wife recognized that, and we sought out what’s been an effective and stabilizing course correction in my regime from a rehab facility in Switzerland. You must understand bipolar is a disease. It’s one of the most lethal nonterminal illnesses.”
Kanye was finally asked about his repeated comments regarding his opposition to being put on medication. He was asked about his fears regarding that, and if “any of the things you were concerned about actually happened?”
“I’ve been put on and taken off of many medications. That’s just part of the journey. The African American community has a hypersensitivity to antipsychotic drugs, more than most groups,” he explained.
“Finding the right dosage is difficult, but it’s important and critical to finding the right balance with the illness. Zombifying otherwise becomes a side effect of a high dosage. The side effects as such have been a reality for me at times.
And it’s known that 60% to 80% of people who have to take these antipsychotic drugs experience side effects, and up to 25% of people abandon using them because of the side effects. I’m just trying to find what works for me so that I can continue down this positive course.”
