Kanye West is once again making headlines for his comments. This time, he is being slammed by social media users after he appeared to liken losing a brand deal to the death of George Floyd.
On Friday, the rapper - who now goes simply by Ye - stopped to answer questions to reporters in Los Angeles. The footage, which has since circulated on social media, shows the rapper discussing the recent fallout from his terminated Adidas partnership - a move that caused a $1.5 billion dent in his net worth, according to Forbes.
As reported by the New York Post, the 45-year-old can be heard stating: "I had experiences where I felt like I was being teamed up on. And I didn't realize that term would be antisemitic. So I had a mediation with Adidas today and I think Adidas felt like cause everyone else was ganging up on me that they had the right to take my designs."
"I feel like this is God humbling me right now," he adds, before continuing: "Cause there's two things that are happening. A lot of times when I would say 'I am the richest Black man,' it would be a defense that I would use for the mental health conversation."
The 'I Am A God' rapper also took the opportunity to somewhat apologize for his previous comments about Black people, saying: "What's happening right now is I'm being humbled. Another thing that's happening to me is by being burned to the flesh every single day, it's actually proving what I had to say.
"When I went to the mediation, what I wanna say is, Black people are like okay, 'Lex Fridman got you to apologize, Piers Morgan got you to apologize to Jews, but you never apologized to us about the George Floyd comment that made us feel bad.'"
(This was seemingly in reference to two separate interviews Ye participated in - one on Lex Fridman's podcast and the other on Piers Morgan's TV show - where he was quizzed about his comments many deemed to be antisemitic.)

Ye continued: "When the idea of Black Lives Matter came out, it made us come together as a people. So I then said that and I questioned the death of George Floyd, it hurt my people. It hurt the Black people. So, I want to apologize because God has shown me by what Adidas is doing and by what the media is doing, I know how it feels to have a knee on my neck now."
Despite his "apology", the message he delivered was not well-received by many social media users, who slammed him for comparing Floyd's death to losing a business deal.
In 2020, Floyd was murdered by police during an arrest after a store clerk accused him of trying to use counterfeit cash. Police officer Derek Chauvin had been kneeling on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes, which courts later ruled attributed to the father's death.
Floyd's final words: "I can't breathe," were chanted in protest in the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that followed globally in the weeks and months to come.
Given this, Twitter users felt the comparison between this senseless murder and the termination of an Adidas deal was insensitive, with one person writing: "Kanye West does NOT have a knee on his neck right now. This apology is still offensive and it’s outrageous he’s comparing his narcissism to a man who was brutally murdered in public crying he couldn’t breathe. Kanye is breathing FINE."
Another user chimed in with: "It's insulting to all the [Black]/brown people who have been assaulted or harassed and had loved ones murdered unjustly to hear him say he knows what it's like to have a knee on your neck just [because] he lost a few contracts."
However, others defended Ye, including this person who tweeted: "Something about us getting mad at another black person for not being as eloquent in speech bothers me. Now that he apologized for being wrong [we're] questioning intentions. I can forgive the uninformed but what we are witnessing a group of people do to a black man should enrage us."
"[Especially] when he was misunderstood for speaking up his mind. This is sad. I just hope he's safe and now has some quiet time to think clearly about his life. It's time to stop worrying about the world. The world doesn't care anyways," someone else added.
Joining Adidas in terminating partnerships with Ye are Vogue, Gap, Balenciaga, and JP Morgan Chase.