Quentin Tarantino has responded to Kanye West's claims that he and Jamie Foxx stole his idea for the 2012 movie Django Unchained.
During an interview with fellow controversial figure Piers Morgan last week, the rapper, who officially changed his name to "Ye" last year, said that he had pitched the premise for the slavery-themed Western as the concept for his 'Gold Digger' music video.
“The idea for ‘Django’ I pitched to [actor] Jamie Foxx and Quentin Tarantino as the video for ‘Gold Digger,’” West said, referring to his 2005 hit song. “And then Tarantino turned it into a film.”
Now, Tarantino has responded to the allegation during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Thursday.
Tarantino told Kimmel: "There's not truth to the idea that Kanye West came up with the idea of Django. And then he told it to me and I go, 'Hey, wow, that's a really great idea, let me take Kanye's idea and make Django Unchained out of it.' OK that didn't happen."
"I'd had the idea for a while before I ever met Kanye," explained Tarantino, adding: "He did have an idea for a video, and I do think it was for the 'Gold Digger' video, that he would be a slave.
"And the whole thing was the slave narrative, where he's the slave, and he's singing 'Gold Digger.' And it was very funny. It was a really, really funny idea." However, being a slave in the video seemed to be the only similarity."
"It was meant to be ironic," said Tarantino. "It's like a huge musical. I mean, like, no expenses spared, all right? With him in this, like, slave rag outfit doing everything. Then that was also part of the pushback on it. But, I wish he had done it. It sounded really cool. Anyway, that's what he's referring to."
Django Unchained centers around a freed slave (played by Foxx) who sets out to save his wife (played by Kerry Washington) from a ruthless plantation owner in Mississippi (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) with the aid of a bounty hunter from Germany (played by Christoph Waltz).