It was the interview that basically broke the internet. December 2022. Kanye West, now legally known as Ye, sat down with Alex Jones on InfoWars. He wasn't just there to talk music or fashion. He showed up wearing a black mesh mask that covered his entire face—no eyes, no mouth, just a void.
Then he said it.
"I like Hitler."
The room went quiet, even for a guy like Alex Jones who spends his life talking about conspiracies. It wasn't a slip of the tongue. It wasn't a "gotcha" moment. It was a deliberate, repeated endorsement. People were searching for kanye west i'm a nazi within minutes, trying to figure out if they’d actually heard him correctly. They had.
The Infowars Interview: A Breakdown of the Chaos
Honestly, seeing Alex Jones try to be the "voice of reason" was perhaps the surrealist part of the whole day. Jones tried to give Ye an out. He suggested that maybe Ye was just being edgy or that he didn't really mean he was a Nazi.
Ye didn't take the bait.
Instead, he doubled down. He told Jones, "I see good things about Hitler also." He claimed the man "invented highways" and the "very microphone" he used. Note: historians will tell you the microphone was around way before the Third Reich, but facts weren't really the priority that afternoon.
Later in the broadcast, the rhetoric got even more direct. Ye said, "We gotta stop dissing the Nazis all the time... I love Nazis." It was a total rejection of the "cancel culture" defense his fans had been using for weeks. This wasn't about "free speech" anymore. It was about a global superstar aligning himself with the most hated regime in history.
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The Financial Death Spiral
The "Death Con 3" tweet was the beginning. The InfoWars appearance was the end.
Before the interview, Ye was a billionaire. After? Not even close. Forbes stripped him of that title almost immediately. The fallout was a masterclass in how fast a personal brand can evaporate when it hits a third rail.
- Adidas: They were the biggest domino. They ended the Yeezy partnership, a move that cost them over $1 billion in unsold inventory. They stated clearly they do not tolerate antisemitism.
- Balenciaga: The high-fashion house cut ties before the InfoWars interview even aired, sensing the direction the wind was blowing.
- Gap: They shut down YeezyGap.com and pulled all remaining products from their shelves.
- CAA: His talent agency dropped him.
- MRC: A completed documentary about his life was shelved. They refused to release it, citing his "vicious" rhetoric.
He went from a net worth of roughly $2 billion to around $400 million overnight. Most of that remaining $400 million is tied up in real estate, his music catalog, and his small stake in Skims. The liquid "Yeezy money" was gone.
Was This a Mental Health Crisis or Something Else?
This is where the conversation gets complicated.
Ye has been open about his diagnosis with bipolar disorder for years. He’s famously refused medication at times, saying it "stifles his creativity." Because of this, a huge chunk of the public wanted to blame the kanye west i'm a nazi comments on a manic episode.
But advocacy groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) weren't having it.
They argued that being mentally ill doesn't make you an antisemite. It might lower your inhibitions, sure. It might make you say the "quiet part" out loud. But the ideas have to be there in the first place. Reports from Rolling Stone and CNN later suggested this wasn't a new fascination. Anonymous sources from as far back as 2003—the College Dropout era—claimed he’d always had a "disturbing history of admiring" Nazi Germany.
One source even claimed he wanted to title his 2018 album Hitler before settling on Ye.
The 2023 "Apology" and the 2025 Relapse
Fast forward to late 2023. Ye posted an apology on Instagram written in Hebrew. It looked professional. It felt like a public relations move to get back into the good graces of the industry. He said he "deeply regretted" any pain he caused.
But the "forgiveness tour" didn't last.
By early 2025, the cycle started again. He released a music video for a track titled "HEIL HITLER (HOOLIGAN VERSION)" on X (formerly Twitter). The lyrics included lines like "So I became a Nazi, I'm the villain." He was seen on Twitch giving a Nazi salute. It seemed the 2023 apology was just a tactical pause rather than a change of heart.
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Why This Still Matters in 2026
We're living in a time where the line between "trolling" and "hate speech" has basically disappeared. When someone with 30 million followers starts praising the Holocaust, it has real-world legs. The ADL reported a spike in antisemitic incidents following his rants, including banners hung over Los Angeles freeways that read "Kanye is right about the Jews."
It's not just "celebrity drama." It’s a case study in how extremist ideas move from the fringes of the internet (like InfoWars) into the mainstream.
Actionable Insights: Navigating the Fallout
If you're a fan, a brand, or just a bystander, here is how to process the ongoing Ye saga:
- Separate the Art from the Artist (if you can): Many fans still stream My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy but refuse to buy new Yeezys. It’s a personal boundary.
- Understand the Rhetoric: If you hear someone defending the "good things" Nazis did, realize this is a classic propaganda tactic used to normalize hate.
- Monitor the Platforming: The InfoWars interview showed that platforms matter. Without Jones giving him a mic, the reach of those comments would have been significantly smaller.
- Watch the Money: The fact that Adidas and Gap took massive hits to stand by their values shows that corporate accountability is possible, even when it hurts the bottom line.
The story of Ye isn't a comeback story—at least not yet. It's a cautionary tale about how one of the most brilliant musical minds of a generation chose a path of radicalization that cost him his empire. Whether he can ever truly "make amends" is up to the communities he targeted, but for now, the mask remains on.
To stay informed on this evolving story, keep an eye on official statements from the ADL or the Southern Poverty Law Center, as they track the real-world impact of celebrity-led extremist rhetoric.