Kanye West has offered an apology to the family of George Floyd after saying that Floyd died from fentanyl, and not from the physical force of Minneapolis police officers.
On Friday (October 28), West said he was sorry for these comments while surrounded by paparazzi, per Consequence.
“When I see that video as a Black person, it hurts my feelings,” West said. “And I know that police attack [sic] and that America is generally racist. And I understand that when we got to say, Black Lives Matter, the idea of it made us feel good together as a people. Now, afterwards, there were some things where the money went in order to push us to the Democratic vote.”
West said that because Adidas ended its business relationship with him, he understands the pain he caused by spreading conspiracy theories about Floyd’s death.
“So when I questioned the death of George Floyd, it hurt my people,” he continued. “I want to apologize. Because God has shown me what Adidas is doing, by what the media is doing, I know what it feels like to have a knee on my neck right now.
“So thank you God for humbling me and letting me know how it really felt. Because how could the richest Black men ever be humbled other than to be made not to be a billionaire in front of everyone off a comment.”
In response to his controversial remarks, Floyd’s family filed a $250 million lawsuit on behalf of Floyd’s daughter, who is the only beneficiary of his estate.
Elsewhere in Friday’s impromptu press conference, West doubled down on his anti-Semitic rhetoric comparing the Holocaust to Planned Parenthood, saying “that the number of Jews killed in Nazi Germany paled in comparison to the number of Black people killed by abortion.”
