Kanye “Ye” West Renounces Nazi Statements in Full-Page Ad, Cites Bipolar Disorder and Brain Trauma

Kanye “Ye” West has placed a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal taking back a number of antisemitic statements he made on social media over the past several years and now attributing his hateful rants to a brain injury, while declaring, “I love Jewish people.”

Nearly a year ago, in February 2025, the rapper and fashion mogul was widely condemned after posting about his admiration for Adolf Hitler and declaring himself to be a Nazi. He walked that affiliation back in Monday’s ad.

“I am not a Nazi or an antisemite. I love Jewish people. … I regret and am deeply mortified by my actions in that state and am committed to accountability, treatment and meaningful change.”

West goes on, in the ad’s copy, to explain that the right frontal lobe of his brain was injured in a car accident, saying that “it wasn’t properly diagnosed until 2023,” when he was told he has bipolar disorder. West was in a car accident after leaving a recording studio in 2002, which left his jaw broken in three places. He has said that the accident inspired some of the songs on his Grammy-winning debut album, The College Dropout.

In the advertisement, West wrote: “I regret and am deeply mortified by my actions in that state, and am committed to accountability, treatment and meaningful change,” and added that the “medical oversight caused serious damage to my mental health and led to my bipolar type 1 diagnosis.”

Because of the accident and his recovery, he claims, “I lost touch with reality” and “became detached from my true self.”

“Things got worse the longer I ignored the problem. I said and did things I deeply regret,” he wrote. “Some of the people I love the most, I treated them the worst. You endured fear, confusion, humiliation and the exhaustion of trying to love someone who was, at times, unrecognizable. Looking back, I became detached from my true self.”

In a “fractured state,” West wrote that he moved “toward the most destructive symbol I could find, the swastika.” In many of the moments that he lashed out at people online, he says he “can’t remember,” but that it showed “poor judgment and reckless behavior that feels like an out-of-body experience.”

West also wrote about four months in 2025 when he experienced a “long manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life,” adding that he contemplated suicide during this period. His wife, Bianca Censori, helped him by encouraging him to seek medical treatment.

In 2022, West’s antisemitic rants were the final straw for executives at Adidas, who ended the clothing megabrand’s partnership with Yeezy after he wrote on X, “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 on Jewish people.” The dissolution of that contract cost his business over $500 million, Forbes reported. He apologized for his statements in 2023 ahead of the release of new music, but the antisemitic posts came roaring back and were accompanied by hateful music with a similar message in 2025.

That year, the rapper released a song titled “Heil Hitler,” which received condemnation from a wide swath of the music industry and the public. The song was seen as glamorizing Nazi ideology, antisemitism and Hitler.

A former Yeezy staffer filed a legal complaint against the rapper in 2024, alleging that the brand’s boss had compared himself to Hitler and threatened her because she was Jewish. She was fired from the company after the alleged conduct was reported to her supervisor. West was ultimately ordered by the court to pay more than $76,000 for the ex-staffer’s legal fees.

The Anti-Defamation League sent a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, indicating that West’s apology doesn’t make up for his years of comments.

“Ye’s apology to the Jewish people is long overdue and doesn’t automatically undo his long history of antisemitism – the antisemitic ‘Heil Hitler’ song he created, the hundreds of tweets, the swastikas and myriad Holocaust references – and all of the feelings of hurt and betrayal it caused. The truest apology would be for him to not engage in antisemitic behavior in the future. We wish him well on the road to recovery,” the ADL spokesman said in the statement.