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Google PlayN.O.R.E. has shared an apology in connection with the latest Drink Champs episode featuring the artist formerly known as Kanye West.
In the interview, as previously reported, Ye made incorrect remarks about the cause of death in the murder of George Floyd. Civil rights attorney Lee Merritt later announced that Floyd’s family is considering a lawsuit against Ye over “false statements about the manner of his death.”
Specifically, Ye attempted to link Floyd’s 2020 death at the hands of since-convicted Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin to fentanyl. This is an outright fabrication, as Floyd’s death was officially ruled a homicide. Chauvin, notably, is currently behind bars after being found guilty in Floyd’s murder.
During a call-in appearance on Monday’s Breakfast Club, N.O.R.E. apologized to Floyd’s family and said that Drink Champs will employ editing in the future.
“I just wanna be honest, I support freedom of speech,” N.O.R.E. said. “I support anybody, you know, not being censored. But I do not support anybody being hurt. I did not realize that the George Floyd statements on my show was so hurtful. And you gotta realize, it was the first five minutes of the show When he walked in, he told my producer, he said that if he’ll stop filming, he’ll walk out.”
According to N.O.R.E., he and the team didn’t want to have a “Birdman moment” (Birdman walked out of a Breakfast Club interview in 2016). N.O.R.E. also said he “checked” Ye on his comments later into the episode, although he conceded he was “already inebriated” by that point, which meant his pushback may have been overlooked.
“I apologize to the George Floyd family,” he said. “I apologize to anybody that was hurt by Kanye West’s comments.”
Around the 3:40 mark in the video below, N.O.R.E. was asked why Drink Champs even bothered with the interview at all given Ye’s recent antisemitic comments. N.O.R.E. responded with an explanation focused on how Ye has treated him in one-on-one scenarios in the past, although he also condemned Ye’s current rhetoric.
“I don’t support none of it,” he said. “I don’t support the George Floyd comments, I don’t support the antisemitic [comments]. That’s all I have is Jewish friends, all I have is Black friends. That’s it.”
N.O.R.E. also addressed the interview during a Hot 97 appearance, as seen below. In both the Breakfast Club and Hot 97 appearances, N.O.R.E. expressed his desire to not give up on Ye, despite this latest batch of developments.
At the time of this writing, the latest Ye-featuring Drink Champs episode did not appear in the list of episodes on Apple Podcasts.
Following antisemitic comments on Twitter and Instagram this month, Ye has been met with widespread pushback, as well as temporary restrictions being placed on both accounts. By Monday morning, Ye was said in a press release from Parlement Technologies to be acquiring the so-called conservative social media platform Parler. Unsurprisingly, the CEO of Parlement Technologies is Candace Owens’ husband.
