In an interview with Vanity Fair, the artist formerly known as Kanye West denied that his apology letter to the Black and Jewish communities is a PR strategy ahead of the arrival of his new studio album, Bully.
In the newly published interview, Ye answered several questions about his Wall Street Journal-published letter, in which he claimed a four-month manic episode “destroyed” his life, and hit back against the idea that he apologized to revive his commercial viability.
“It’s my understanding that I was in the top 10 most listened-to artists overall in the US on Spotify in 2025, and last week and most days as well,” Ye said. “My upcoming album, Bully, is currently one of the most anticipated pre-saves of any album on Spotify too. My 2007 album, Graduation, was also the most listened-to and streamed hip-hop album of 2025. This, for me, as evidenced by the letter, isn’t about reviving my commerciality.”
He said that he felt compelled to apologize because of the remorse he felt.
“These remorseful feelings were so heavy on my heart and weighing on my spirit,” he continued. “I owe a huge apology once again for everything that I said that hurt the Jewish and Black communities in particular. All of it went too far. I look at wreckage of my episode and realize that this isn’t who I am. As a public figure, so many people follow and listen to my every word. It’s important that they realize and understand what side of history that I want to stand on. And that is one of love and positivity.”
He added that he didn’t feel regret about his actions, which included releasing t-shirts featuring a swastika and recording a song entitled “Heil Hitler,” until he came out the other side of a manic episode caused by his bipolar type-1 disorder. He said that he’s been making an effort to mend his relationships that were strained because of his behavior, which became increasingly difficult for many of his collaborators to justify over the last few years.
“Every day that I wake up, it’s a checklist of everything that I said—at least what I can recall—while in a bipolar episode,” he said. “All of the family bonds, deep relationships, and lifelong friendships that I worked so hard to build over so many years were all tarnished by all of the horrible statements that I made so impulsively. … The antipsychotic drug took me into a really deep depressive episode. My wife recognized that, and we sought out what’s been effective and stabilizing course correction in my regime from a rehab facility in Switzerland.”
He also explained that when he’s been at his most manic, he would find himself not believing that he is, in fact, sick. “You think that everyone else is deeply overreacting,” he said. “You feel like you’re seeing the world so much more clearly on things, when in reality you’re losing your grip entirely. That’s what it felt like at that time.”
Near the end of his four-month-long manic episode, he said that he changed medication and was forced to address his repeated statements against being medicated for his mental illness.
“That’s just part of the journey,” he said. “The African American community has a hypersensitivity to antipsychotic drugs, more than most groups. Finding the right dosage is difficult, but it’s important and critical to finding the right balance with the illness. Zombifying otherwise becomes a side effect of a high dosage. The side effects as such have been a reality for me at times. And it’s known that 60% to 80% of people who have to take these antipsychotic drugs experience side effects, and up to 25% of people abandon using them because of the side effects. I’m just trying to find what works for me so that I can continue down this positive course.”
In his letter, Ye said that his near-fatal car crash in 2002 caused him to suffer neurological damage that went unnoticed at the time. He wrote that he’s “deeply mortified” by his actions. “[I] am committed to accountability, treatment, and meaningful change,” he wrote. “It does not excuse what I did, though. I am not a Nazi or an antisemite. I love Jewish people." He also apologized to the Black community and wrote, “I am so sorry to have let you down.”
In the letter, he also said that his frontal lobe injury led to his struggles with bipolar disorder, something that neuropathologist Bennet Omalu, who is a leading voice in the research of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), corroborated as a possibility. “TBI [traumatic brain injury] can result in a variety of behavioral, cognitive, and mood disorders,” he told Vanity Fair.
Dr. Avinoam Patt, director of the Center for the Study of Antisemitism at New York University, said that he’s skeptical of the apology, however. “We now have a pattern that goes back years of antisemitic rants that reinforce harmful, dangerous stereotypes about Jews,” he told Vanity Fair. “ think what’s important to say is that the vast majority of people who have mental health issues, or specifically have bipolar disorder, don’t espouse antisemitic or racist ideas.”