Ye started 2022 as a billionaire, but the end looks a lil’ different. The artist lost Yeezy’s partnerships with Gap, Balenciaga, and Adidas in the last few months. He’s still facing public scrutiny for anti-Semitic commentary and a $25 million defamation lawsuit from George Floyd’s family. Then, there’s the loss of his rarely experienced financial feat–his billionaire status.
In another gloomy development, the former Mr. West recently revealed the IRS has his bank accounts in a multi-million dollar chokehold. Before abruptly ending a recent podcast appearance, Ye claimed the Internal Revenue Service put a $75 million hold on his accounts.
Ye told Time Pool, the host of the right-wing podcast Timcast IRL, that his financial advisers alerted him to the situation. He claims he discovered a plot to get him behind prison bars on the morning of the podcast filming.
“So they froze, they put a $75 million hold on four of my accounts,” Ye said. “And then they said you owe a lot of taxes. Took me, like, six hours to find out how much ‘a lot’ was. They said, well, around $50 million.”
Afterward, Ye said he asked about being eligible for the presidential race from prison. He learned the answer was yes, as backed by legal experts interviewed by Insider. The musician and designer recently cv b
Kanye says he almost went to jail recently, found out all of sudden he owes $50 million in taxes pic.twitter.com/Ym2YVYLra7
— CultureMillennials (@CultMillennials) November 29, 2022
Ye Storms Out Following Anti-Semitism Question
During the interview, Ye admitted he isn’t the most “financially literate person on the planet” and sought advice from his business CFOs about tax evasion after the news.
Ye explained that when he first became famous, he was 24 and “stopped growing” in certain areas because he had handlers and his mother around for business.
“It was always like you go from one handler to the next handler, to the next, to the next. So now I’m having –I get to actually learn how to run a company,” Ye said. I get to learn how to, you know, to count really. I was like Pablo in a movie, it was like I didn’t even know where to put the money, literally making like $300 million cash, but you’re just like a high-priced…you know we’re not gonna use the s-word just cause it’s like too passé.”
Later in the interview, anti-Semitism took over the topic of conversation.
“You know coming here, I feel like it’s a setup like to be defending…I’m not going to go through another…like I’m literally going to walk the F-off if I’m sitting up here talking about, you know, you can’t say it was Jewish people that did it when every sensible person knows…Jon Stuart knows what happened to me. And they took it too far,” Ye said.
Minutes later, he stormed off of the podcast while the podcast host and guests continued the discussion. The moment is the latest in controversial interviews featuring the rapper–from his Drink Champs appearance to commentary with paparazzi.
