Howard Stern lashed out at Kanye West during the Oct. 19 episode of his SiriusXM radio show (via Mediaite). West has courted controversy in recent weeks for making antisemitic statements, most recently in an interview with Chris Cuomo where the rapper cited the “Jewish underground media mafia.” Stern compared West to Hitler and criticized his defenders who cite mental health issues as the source of West’s antisemitic behavior.
“I almost don’t want to give any energy to this Kanye West character,” Stern said. “I don’t know much about Kanye West. I’m not big into the rap scene, but, he is, you know — I’m really tired of people excusing his behavior, by saying, ‘Well, he’s just mentally ill.'”
Stern continued, “Kanye was on the Chris Cuomo show, and good lord, you gotta hear the shit this guy’s into and fuck this mental illness, self defense thing that he’s into, you know, like, ‘Oh yeah, he’s just mentally ill. Don’t worry about it…’ If he’s so mentally ill, why don’t they appoint a conservator over his money like they did with the poor Britney Spears?”
While Stern did not want to give West’s beliefs another platform, he did commend media organizations for calling out the rapper and “exposing him.” He then played a clip of West and Cuomo’s discussion where the rapper cited the “Jewish underground media mafia” as a reason why he’s not referred to as a billionaire or tycoon in the press.
“Guess what, douchebag? When they write about me, they call me the shock jock. You don’t have control over — You are a rapper. That is what you are. That’s how you became famous,” Stern said. “If a newspaper article doesn’t point out the fact that you’re some sort of designer or genius, maybe that’s not because they’re Jewish, but maybe because they just doesn’t put that much thought into who the fuck you are and what your business is.
“This is so depressing. I mean, Kanye used to be fun crazy. Now he’s like Hitler,” Stern concluded.
West also earned scorn from Jon Stewart (via The Daily Beast) on the most recent episode of his podcast. Stewart similarly spoke out against West’s defenders, noting that if the rapper is mentally ill then he’s not sure what medicine could stop him from being antisemitic.
“I don’t know what drug you could get that could make you not believe there’s a cabal of Jews controlling the flow of information from your mouth to the public,” Stewart said.
