After half a week of using his X account to declare himself a Nazi, express his love for Adolf Hitler, denounce Jewish people, and post hardcore pornography, fallen rapper Kanye West appeared in a Super Bowl ad on Sunday evening.
Though the commercial did not run nationally — this year, the prized 30-second spots at that tier cost brands nearly $8 million — it ran in at least one major market, Los Angeles, which may alone have cost Ye more than $1 million. The spot finds him reclined in a dentist chair (a former associate, right-wing troll Milo Yiannopoulos, has alleged that West is suffering from addiction to nitrous oxide, the “laughing gas” used as an anesthetic in dentistry), explaining that “I spent, like, all the money for the commercial, um, on these new teeth. So once again I had to shoot it on an iPhone.” West then concludes the selfie video by telling the viewer to visit the website Yeezy.com.
As of Sunday night, the website showed various apparel items for sale, including shirts with the provocative slogan “White Lives Matter.” But early on Monday, the store was erased except for a single item: a white T-shirt emblazoned with with a black swastika. The product is labeled HH-01, the letters presumably standing for “Heil Hitler.” The shirt, which comes in three sizes, is listed with a price tag of $20 (not including tax and shipping).
Fox Sports, which broadcast the Super Bowl and the ad (via regional affiliates), did not immediately respond to a request for comment on where the commercial was shown and how much West paid for its placement. It’s also unclear at this time what kind of internal decision-making led to the airing of a commercial made by a celebrity with a history of publicly extolling Nazism.
West posted one last time on Sunday before apparently deactivating his X account, which had not been suspended by the platform despite several of his recent posts being hidden for hate-speech violations. He wrote that he was “logging out of Twitter” and noted, “I appreciate Elon [Musk] for allowing me to vent,” shouting out the site’s owner. Musk came under fire himself after making straight-armed salute at an event on the day of President Donald Trump’s inauguration last month that many far-right extremists and white nationalists excitedly interpreted as the Nazi “Sieg Heil” gesture.
In his farewell to social media — for now, anyway — West wrote that it had been “very cathartic to use the world as a sounding board.” During his many rants in the days prior, he had also claimed “dominion” over his wife, the model Bianca Censori, who was photographed essentially naked with West in a transparent dress at the Grammy Awards red carpet on Feb. 2. He also called for the release of rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is currently being held without bail on sex trafficking charges.
As for Ye’s new Nazi apparel, the shirt seems unlikely to rack up the sort of profit that would pay for another ad during the most-watched event on television. Of course, that doesn’t seem to be the point.
From Rolling Stone US
