Kanye West allegedly confessed his love for German dictator Adolf Hitler during his contentious TMZ interview in 2018. During a recent episode of Van Lathan’s Higher Learning podcast, the former TMZ employee discussed Kanye’s recent wave of anti-Semitism.
Lathan stated that nothing Ye said shocked him, because during the infamous interview—where West also proclaimed “slavery was a choice”—the fashion designer expressed similar sentiments.
The Higher Learning host explains that the TMZ interview wasn’t chopped up to make West sound more intelligent, but to compensate for removed footage showing Ye asserting his love for Hitler. “As far as [Ye], I knew that that was in him because when he came to TMZ, he said that stuff, and they took it out of the interview.”
“If you look at what I said at TMZ, it goes from me saying like, ‘Hey Kanye, there’s real-life, real-world implication to everything that you just said there,'” Lathan recalled. “What I say after that—if I can remember, it’s been a long time—was, actually, ’12 million people actually died because of Nazism and Hitler and all of that stuff,’ and then I move on to talk about what he said about slavery.”
Lathan, 42, elaborated on the “12 million people” who died, detailing why that portion of his rebuttal to Kanye was cut. He also doubled down on his claims that the interview was cut because of Ye’s hateful language.
“The reason they took it out is because it wouldn’t have made sense unless they kept in Kanye saying he loved Hitler and the Nazis, which he said when he was at TMZ,” he said. “He said something like, ‘I love Hitler, I love Nazis.’ Something to that effect when he was there. And they took it out of the interview for whatever reason. It wasn’t my decision.”
The interview arrives in the aftermath of JPMorgan Chase cutting ties with West.
JPMorgan reportedly didn’t give a reason for distancing itself from the fashion designer, but it seems to coincide with his tirade against Jewish people and his choice to wear “White Lives Matter” t-shirts.
Candace shared the news with JP Morgan Chase’s alleged letter requesting West transfer his business to another financial institution.
The note states that any of Ye’s accounts still open past Nov. 21 would be terminated. The rapper would then be sent checks for his remaining capital.
Watch the video below at the 20-minute mark for Van Lathan’s revelation.