On Monday morning, readers of the Wall Street Journal turned the page to find a full-page letter from one of the most controversial figures in American entertainment.
“To Those I’ve Hurt,” the headline read.
The author was Kanye West.
“I am not a Nazi or an antisemite. I love Jewish people,” the rapper wrote, attributing years of erratic and inflammatory behavior to a brain injury sustained in his near-fatal 2002 car accident—the same crash that inspired “Through the Wire” and launched his career. He revealed that the injury to his right frontal lobe went undiagnosed for over two decades, eventually contributing to a bipolar disorder diagnosis.
It was a striking admission. It was also his third public apology for antisemitic remarks since 2023.
The pattern is difficult to ignore.
In December 2022, West sat across from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Infowars, his face obscured by a black ski mask, and said the words that would sever nearly every major business relationship he had: “I like Hitler.” He went further. “I am a Nazi,” he declared. “I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazis.” He denied the Holocaust.
The consequences were immediate. Adidas, Balenciaga, and Gap severed ties. His net worth collapsed. For a moment, it seemed like a reckoning.
Then came the first apology. In 2023, West posted a message to Instagram written in Hebrew, directed at the Jewish community.
Weeks later, the tone shifted again. He announced he “likes Jewish people again”—after watching Jonah Hill in “21 Jump Street.”
For a while, things quieted down. Then February 2025 arrived.
In a barrage of posts on X, West declared, “I’m a Nazi,” “I love Hitler, now what b-tches,” and invited followers to call him “Yadolf Yitler.” In the same breath, he wrote: “I’m never apologizing for my Jewish comments.”
Days later, during the Super Bowl, an ad aired on local Fox stations. West, seated in a dentist’s chair, told viewers to visit Yeezy.com. The site had been selling ordinary merchandise. But after the ad ran, everything was replaced with a single item: a white T-shirt bearing a black swastika, priced at $20. The product code read “HH-01″—which the Anti-Defamation League identified as shorthand for “Heil Hitler.”
Shopify pulled the site within 48 hours.
Three months later, in May 2025, West posted five words: “I am done with antisemitism.”
Now, eight months later, comes this: a 750-word letter in a national newspaper, asking not for sympathy, but for patience.
“I’m not asking for sympathy, or a free pass, though I aspire to earn your forgiveness,” he wrote.
Online Reaction
The internet was not in a forgiving mood.
Within hours, the apology was trending—not for its contrition, but for its timing. West is reportedly preparing to release a new album.
“He also has a new album about to come out,” one user wrote on Threads. “That apology is PR.”
“Apologies that coincide with releases aren’t apologies,” another posted. “They’re rollouts.”
One viral post needed no commentary at all—just a screenshot of a Kanye lyric from his 2010 track “Monster”: “F—–g’ up my money so, yeah, I had to act sane.”
Not everyone dismissed the letter outright. “I went into reading Kanye West’s apology with skepticism but came out of it feeling that this genuine remorse and a testament to the risks of denying one’s mental illness,” one user wrote.
But the skepticism was louder.
What’s Next
In the ad, West credited his wife, Bianca Censori, with encouraging him to finally seek help. He described a new chapter: “an effective regime of medication, therapy, exercise, and clean living.”
“I am pouring my energy into positive, meaningful art: music, clothing, design, and other new ideas to help the world,” he wrote.
West is reportedly preparing to release new music. He has not spoken publicly since the ad was published.
Whether this apology marks a genuine turning point—or another stop on a familiar cycle—remains to be seen.
