Charlie Puth has a very urgent message for Ye: STOP. The “Left and Right” singer took to his Instagram Story on Monday (Feb. 10) to implore the artist formerly known as Kanye West to stop selling a t-shirt commemorating the Nazi slaughter of six million Jews.
“@ye The message you are sending out to the world is incredibly dangerous,” wrote Puth. “Please man, I beg you to stop. You are selling a T-shirt with a Swastika on it, and MILLIONS of people are influenced by you. Please I BEG you to stop, PLEASE.”
The call seems unlikely to land with the rapper whose once praised, prodigious skills as a musician and culture mover have been overshadowed, again, by his embrace of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, Nazi symbolism and virulent antisemitic messaging.
Puth’s plea came after Ye went on a four-day hate spree on X beginning last Friday, in which he posted dozens of all caps screeds every hour that included homophobic, ableist and antisemitic slurs. He capped things off on Sunday night with a Super Bowl commercial for his Yeezy brand that aired in a handful of markets and took fans to a site that at present is selling only one product: a white t-shirt featuring a swastika.
Ye’s promotion of Nazi symbolism drew yet another rebuke from the Anti-Defamation League, which warned that such antisemitic behavior from a person with a large social audience is both dangerous and irresponsible at a time when attacks on Jewish people have been on the rise. “As if we needed further proof of Kanye’s antisemitism, he chose to put a single item for sale on his website — a T-shirt emblazoned with a swastika,” read the group’s statement.
“The swastika is the symbol adopted by Hitler as the primary emblem of the Nazis. It galvanized his followers in the 20th century and continues to threaten and instill fear in those targeted by antisemitism and white supremacy,” the group that works to combat antisemitism and other forms of hate and bigotry continued. “If that wasn’t enough, the T-shirt is labeled on Kanye’s website as ‘HH-01,’ which is code for ‘Heil Hitler.’ Kanye was tweeting vile antisemitism nonstop since last week. There’s no excuse for this kind of behavior. Even worse, Kanye advertised his website during the Super Bowl, amplifying it beyond his already massive social media audience.”
West’s barrage of hate speech included declarations such as “I’m a Nazi” and “I love Hitler,” as well as offensive tweets targeting people with disabilities, Taylor Swift and Super Bowl halftime performer Kendrick Lamar. He also petitioned Donald Trump to free disgraced Bad Boy Records founder Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is in jail without bail awaiting trail in New York on charges of racketeering, sex trafficking and transportation to engage in prostitution charges.
The rapper’s lauding of Nazis and Hitler also drew a rebuke from former Friends star David Schwimmer, who on Saturday implored X owner Musk to ban Ye from the platform. “This is so 2022. We can’t stop a deranged bigot from spewing hate filled, ignorant bile… but we CAN stop giving him a megaphone, Mr. Musk,” the Jewish actor, 58, wrote on Instagram to the world’s richest man, who himself was accused of making a gesture that many said evoked the Nazi straight-arm salute at one of Trump’s inaugural events last month. “Kanye West has 32.7 million followers on your platform, X. That’s twice as many people than the number of Jews in existence. His sick hate speech results in REAL LIFE violence against Jews.”
Ye was booted from X (then still known as Twitter) in October 2022 for antisemitic posts, briefly reinstated in November of that year and then re-suspended that month after posting an image of a swastika intertwined with a Jewish star. Musk reinstated West’s account eight months later. West, who capped off his manic post salvo by sharing uncensored porn clips, appeared to sign off from X on Sunday night, just hours after his Super Bowl ad promoting the swastika shirt aired.
“I’m logging out of Twitter. I appreciate Elon [Musk] for allowing me to vent. It has been very cathartic to use the world as a sounding board,” Ye wrote before the account went offline. At press time it did not appear as if Musk had responded to West shutting down his account and it was still unclear if the move was West’s choice or if the account had been suspended by X; a spokesperson for West had not returned Billboard’s request for comment at press time.
West’s music and fashion empire went into free fall in late 2022 and early 2023 when he went on a series of similar hate-filled, antisemitic rants that included a threat to go “death con [sic] 3″ on Jewish people, as well as repeated praise for Hitler and the parading of the white supremacist phrase “White Lives Matter” on shirts at Paris Fashion Week.
In quick succession, Ye was dropped by the Gap, Adidas, Balenciaga and his agents at CAA and has his social media accounts suspended or revoked in a fallout so complete that the once — and according to him, again — billionaire said in February of last year that he nearly went bankrupt.
