According to Pitchfork.com, after years of social-media posts and alleged antisemitic invective, Kanye West has taken out a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal that traces his erratic behavior to his 2002 car crash. West published the open letter, “To Those I’ve Hurt,” as he prepares to release a new album, Bully. He claims that various medical issues over the years, which share characteristics with bipolar 1 disorder and autism, says he allegedly could be linked to right frontal lobe damage from the crash that inspired his breakout single “Through the Wire.” The artist also describes “disconnected moments” that have left him in a state akin to “an out-of-body experience,” adding, “It does not excuse what I did, though. I am not a Nazi or an antisemite.”

West blames his turn in mental health on a medical oversight after the crash. At the time, he writes: “the focus was on the visible damage—the fracture, the swelling, and the immediate physical trauma. The deeper injury, the one inside my skull, went unnoticed. Comprehensive scans were not done, neurological exams were limited, and the possibility of a frontal-lobe injury was never raised. It wasn’t properly diagnosed until 2023.” This was not West’s first apology for his behavior because in 2023, he shared a post written in Hebrew that stated “it was not my intention to offend or demean, and I deeply regret any pain I may have caused.”

The escalation of West’s outbursts of alleged racial hatred began in 2022, when he posted, on the platform then called Twitter, that he wanted to go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.” (Adidas and Gap dropped their partnerships with Yeezy; the former company estimated the cost of the termination to be $246 million.) Soon after the platform’s acquisition by Elon Musk later that year, West posted an image on X of a swastika inside the Star of David, leading to another temporary ban. Around the same time, he sold swastika T-shirts through a custom website and appeared on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ InfoWars alongside the white supremacist, antisemite, and Holocaust denier Nicholas J. Fuentes. West praised Hitler and the Nazis, echoing rhetoric he has reportedly espoused in private for many years. His use of the swastika, he writes now, was a product of his “fractured state,” as he reached for “the most destructive symbol [he] could find.”

In February 2025, West returned to X and posted a series of comments that were homophobic, racist, misogynistic, and ableist, reiterating his pro-Nazi remarks. That May, he released “Heil Hitler” and the similarly themed “WW3,” songs that were removed by streaming services but widely shared on X. He writes now, “In early 2025, I fell into a four-month long manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life. As the situation became increasingly unsustainable, there were times I didn’t want to be here anymore.”

Photo Credit: Brandy Hornback