Kanye West, Jimmy Kimmel Bury the Hatchet on the Air
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ABC/Randy Holmes(LOS ANGELES) — On Wednesday night’s installment of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Kanye West was the only guest, and in the extended appearance, West not only made good with Jimmy Kimmel over their one-sided Twitter rant, but the recording artist reestablished that he’s a misunderstood genius.
A Kimmel skit spoofing a West interview to a British reporter two weeks ago kicked off the situation, which began with an angry phone call from West to the talk show host, and escalated to West flaming him on Twitter.
Before West came out, Kimmel explained, “The only other time I was ever involved in a rap feud of this magnitude was in 1992 when I accused Sir Mix-a-Lot of only liking medium butts…That turned out to be my bad.”
When West came out, the pair hugged, though the exchange began as decidedly tense. The recording artist explained the skit hit home because unlike tabloid writers or paparazzi, Kimmel knew West, and knew he was an OK guy.
“When I saw the skit — which I didn’t watch all the way through, because I didn’t wanna be infuriated,” West admitted, “I said, ‘Well, I know you’…And so a combination of me knowing you and me not knowing the person who put a bad headline on the cover of In Touch, and me not knowing this person. And I was like, ‘Well, this is the one person I know!'”
Kimmel agreed, saying, “[A] lot of people think you’re a jerk, and I often in my own personal conversations say, ‘No, I know this guy, he is not a jerk!'”
However, a phone call between the pair made things worse, West said.
“You know, it kinda just went and kinda just elevated from a call we just had as men — and you know, that, that elevates sometimes…and…we took it back to high school a little bit,” he said.
Kimmel interjected with, “I got beat up a lot in high school…So I didn’t wanna go back to high school.”
They seemed to work things out, which allowed West to do what he tends to do best, wax eloquently about himself: “I’m a creative genius, and there’s no other way to say it. I know you’re not supposed to say that about yourself…[but]…For me to say I wasn’t a genius, I would be lying to you and to myself.”
From there, West began to jump from topic to topic, ranting how the world of fashion didn’t take him seriously despite his “dedicating his life” to the industry, to how the Hollywood Walk of Fame was wrong to speak of a reality show star ban — “People are so, so, dated…There’s no way [partner] Kim Kardashian shouldn’t have a star” — to his hopes that he can emulate the impact made by those heroes he compares himself to, among them Jesus, Da Vinci, and NBA Commissioner David Stern.
West ran on so long that the musical guest for the evening, Arctic Monkeys, was bumped.
[ CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE OTHER PARTS OF THE INTERVIEW ]
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