After a week of nonstop scandals, Kanye West emerged on Wednesday night in Tennessee to pose for pictures alongside conservative podcast host Candace Owens and Kim Kardashian’s ex-boyfriend Ray J.
The trio were also joined on the red carpet by country singer Kid Rock and UFC mixed martial artist Colby Covington as they prepared to enter the Nashville theatre for the first screening of Owens’ new documentary, The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM.
Ray J, who dated Kardashian in 2003, recently became ensnared in the Kardashian-Jenner world after an episode of the family’s Hulu reality show The Kardashians discussed the famed sex tape between the pair that launched her headline-grabbing career.
In the episode, Kris Jenner, who has been accused by the musician of leaking the sex tape of her daughter to news outlets, took a lie detector test to prove her innocence. This prompted Ray J to fire back on social media, claiming he has legal documents proving the release of the tape was orchestrated by the 66-year-old manager.
The two exes of Kardashian stood and posed for pictures, with Owens standing the ground between the two musicians so they never had to interact directly.
Wednesday marked the first public appearance for West, who was dressed in all-black baggy clothing, tall boots and capped off his look with a “2024” black baseball hat, since the various scandals involving his antisemitic comments made both online and in-person surfaced in recent days.
On Twitter and Instagram, where the 45-year-old rapper remains locked out of his accounts, he shared separate posts that earned him a booting over the weekend.
Late on Saturday night, West wrote in a since-deleted tweet that he was going to go “death con 3” on Jewish people and alleged that he wasn’t “Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew.”
That message came on the heels of an Instagram post shared late Friday night where he shared a screenshot of a message exchange with musician Sean “Diddy” Combs, in which he accused the 52-year-old of being controlled by Jewish people.
Since those various social media lockouts, it’s been revealed that the Donda artist made spurious antisemitic claims on an episode of LeBron James’s YouTube show, which led to the cancellation of said segment, in unaired footage of a TMZ interview where reporters claimed he said he “loved Hitler and the Nazis” and in leaked footage from his Fox News interview with Tucker Carlson, which was cut from last week’s screenings.
Owens, whose documentary premiere brought the strange reunion of Ms Kardashian’s exes together, has been at the centre of the recent scandals involving West.
Just before the group were photographed on the Nashville red carpet, she tweeted a screenshot of what appeared to be an official letter from JP Morgan Chase in which it said the bank would be ending it’s “financial relationship” with the entrepreneur’s Yeezy, LLC.
“I was told there was no official reason given, but they sent this letter as well to confirm that he has until late November to find another place for the Yeezy empire to bank,” tweeted Owens on Wednesday night.
The Independent has contacted JP Morgan Chase to confirm the veracity of the letter but did not hear back immediately.
Owens also, according to TMZ’s reporting, orchestrated the awkward run-in between Kardashian’s exes on the red carpet in an attempt to slight the reality star-turned business mogul.
West was also reported to have made comments upon leaving Owen’s documentary, according to Page Six, during which he responded to the recent businesses that have reportedly severed ties with him in the wake of his antisemitic remarks.
“Hey, if you call somebody out for bad business, that means you’re being antisemitic,” West reportedly said to photographers after they asked about his reportedly fraught business partnerships with JP Morgan Chase and Adidas, who put their relationship with the fashion designer “under review” last week after he controversially premiered his “White Lives Matter” tees at Paris Fashion Week.
“I feel happy to have crossed the line of that idea so we can speak openly about things like getting cancelled by a bank,” he added, before calling himself “the richest black man in American history.”
As of Thursday morning, West remains locked out of both his Twitter and Instagram accounts with no timeline set for when he will gain access to the respective platforms.
