Of all the wacky things that Kanye West has come out with over the years, his comments on slavery several months back undoubtedly caused the most controversy.
Now, the rapper has taken part in a new interview with The New York Times in which he attempts to clarify his thoughts on the matter - as well as several other topics, including his support of Donald Trump.
Of the former, he says that his wording during that controversial TMZ interview was misconstrued. "I said the idea of sitting in something for 400 years sounds — sounds — like a choice to me, I never said it’s a choice," he said.
"I never said slavery itself — like being shackled in chains — was a choice. That’s why I went from slave to 400 years to mental prison to this and that. If you look at the clip you see the way my mind works."
He also revealed that after the interview, he worried that his wife Kim Kardashian was going to leave him - as documented in the 'Ye' song 'Wouldn't Leave'.
"There was a moment where I felt like after TMZ, maybe a week after that, I felt like the energy levels were low, and I called different family members and was asking, you know, ‘Was Kim thinking about leaving me after TMZ?’" he said. "So that was a real conversation."
On supporting Trump, he said: "I felt that I knew people who voted for Trump that were celebrities that were scared to say that they liked him. But they told me, and I liked him, and I’m not scared to say what I like. Let me come over here and get in this fight with you", adding that he felt under pressure from 'the world' to vote for Hilary Clinton, saying it was "like an arranged marriage or something. And I’m like, that’s not who I want to marry. I don’t feel that."
Read the whole interview here.
