"In a letter titled To Those I've Hurt, he attributed his inflammatory actions, including making profoundly offensive statements and selling T-shirts bearing swastikas, to his bipolar-1 disorder, which he said he developed as a result of medical oversight failing to diagnose a frontal-lobe injury sustained in a car crash in 2002. West now legally known as Ye said that as a result of the disorder, he lost touch with reality, prompting him to gravitate towards the most destructive symbol I could find, the swastika."
"Despite a previous apology to the Jewish community in 2023, in February 2025, West started selling the swastika T-shirts, prompting the commerce platform Shopify to take down his webstore. In May, he released a song called Heil Hitler, which sampled a speech by Hitler and praised the Nazi leader. The song was banned in Germany owing to laws against hate speech and extremism, but went viral online."
"One of the difficult aspects of having bipolar type-1 are the disconnected moments many of which I still cannot recall that led to poor judgment and reckless behavior that oftentimes feels like an out-of-body-experience, he wrote. I regret and am deeply mortified by my actions in that state, and am committed to accountability, treatment, and meaningful change. It does not excuse what I did though."
Kanye West, now legally known as Ye, placed a full-page Wall Street Journal advert apologising for antisemitic behaviour and asserting love for Jewish people. He attributed inflammatory actions — including profoundly offensive statements, selling swastika T-shirts, Holocaust denial, and releasing a song praising Hitler — to bipolar-1 disorder and an undiagnosed frontal-lobe injury from a 2002 car crash. The song "Heil Hitler" sampled Hitler's speech, was banned in Germany under hate-speech laws, but went viral online and prompted Nazi salutes by rightwing influencers. He expressed regret, described losing touch with reality during episodes, and committed to accountability, treatment, and meaningful change.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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