The recent tweets and remarks Ye are not his first Jewish-hate rodeo. The outlet reports that Ye paid a settlement to a former employee who alleged that he had used antisemitic language in the workplace, according to court documents reviewed by NBC News. They also add that in addition, six people who have worked with Ye or witnessed him in professional settings over the past five years said they had heard him praise Adolf Hitler or mention conspiracy theories about Jewish people, adds NBC News.
Three of them are former employees or collaborators, and they said they recalled multiple instances of Ye’s using antisemitic language. The three other people said they recalled a 2018 incident in which Ye went on an antisemitic tirade in an interview at TMZ’s offices.
Their accounts, as well as the settlement, suggest that Ye has used such language for years in more instances than previously known to the public, well before his recent antisemitic comments online and in interviews came to light, resulting in his losing a wave of business deals.
A conceptual artist named Ryder Ripps is one former colleague of Kanye who worked with him between 2014 and 2018 and said he remembers Ye often found positive things to say about Nazis and Hitler, and that he would rattle off anti-Jewish conspiracy theories sometimes. While Ripps said Ye’s opinions “didn’t seem that dangerous” at the time, new Kanye has apparently changed his tune in a non-musical way.
“This is dangerous and disgusting and actually violent,” Ripps said. “With this pattern that’s happening and with the doubling and tripling down of all this, it’s pretty obvious that this is some kind of disgusting, hate-filled, strange Nazi obsession.”
In the settlement agreement, Ye denied the allegations made by his ex-employee who claimed to witness multiple occasions during which Ye was a Hitler cheerleader.
This comes after CNN reported last Thursday that a business executive who worked for Ye had accused him of creating a hostile work environment through an “obsession” with Hitler and had received a settlement. NBC News has not confirmed the settlement, which appears to be separate from the case of the former employee who shared settlement documents with NBC News.