Featured Image Credit: Getty Images
Topics: Super Bowl, NFL
Jack Kenmare
Kanye West has deleted his X account after he made a series of controversial comments on the social media platform, including remarks about Taylor Swift during Sunday's Super Bowl.
The American rapper and record producer, 47, has sparked outrage in the past few days over his offensive outbursts on X, formerly Twitter.
As a result, his account had a “sensitive content warning” added to it as a number of high-profile celebrities, including Piers Morgan and David Schwimmer, called for the Atlanta-born musician to be banned from the platform.
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On Sunday, West continued to post on X during the Super Bowl game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs in New Orleans, Louisiana.
And during Kendrick Lamar's much-talked-about halftime performance, he took aim at Taylor Swift, who was in attendance to watch boyfriend and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
West wrote: "If its about the culture … why are we letting Taylor Swift be seen on TV singing a song about taking a black man down and accusing of things that can take a black man down for life."
The rapper would later sign off from the platform as he thanked Elon Musk, who completed the $44 billion (£38.1bn) takeover of Twitter/X in 2022.
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"I’m logging out of Twitter. I appreciate Elon for allowing me to vent," he wrote. "It has been very cathartic to use the world as a sounding board. It was like an Ayahuasca trip."
West added: "Love all of you who gave me your energy and attention. To we connect again. Good afternoon and good night."
As mentioned above, a number of celebrities called for West to be banned from the platform, including actor David Schwimmer, who cited a number of antisemitic comments made by the rapper.
“This is so 2022,” said Schwimmer on Instagram. “We can’t stop a deranged bigot from spewing hate-filled, ignorant bile… but we CAN stop giving him a megaphone, Mr. Musk.
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"Kanye West has 32.7 million followers on your platform, X. That’s twice as many people than the number of Jews in existence.”
Schwimmer added: “His sick hate speech results in REAL LIFE violence against Jews. I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that he identifies as a Nazi (which implies he wants to exterminate ALL marginalized communities including his own) or the fact that there is not sufficient OUTRAGE to remove and ban him from all social media at this point. Silence is complicity."
As well as his social media posts during Super Bowl LIX, West bought a 30-second ad which he filmed on his iPhone.
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Airing in the second quarter of the game, it showed West in a medical facility wearing sunglasses inside.
"What's up guys. I spent all the money for the commercial on these new teeth," West - who is officially known by Ye - said. "So once again I had to shoot it on the iPhone. Erm... uhm.... go to Yeezy.com."