The artist formerly known as Kanye West, who over the past two weeks went from “I love Hitler” to “After further reflection I’ve come to the realization that I’m not a Nazi” on X, has now brought Joaquin Phoenix’s performance art-driven mockumentary I’m Still Here into the conversation.
The film, directed by Casey Affleck, follows the Oscar-winning actor as a fictional version of himself after he claims to be quitting acting in pursuit of a rap career. Various antics and bizarre public appearances played out during production, all of which were later revealed to have been orchestrated by the filmmakers, with Joaquin remaining in character on The Late Show and elsewhere.
The Joaquin-as-Joaquin experiment, which also saw Diddy being enlisted as a would-be producer for the actor's album, was not unlike the performance art brought to the masses by the late Andy Kaufman decades earlier.
It’s unclear whether Ye is attempting to suggest that he himself is in the middle of a similar project, though such theories have indeed been floated among fans in the past. A new Ye-focused documentary, meanwhile, was announced last year to be slated for a 2025 release.
The I’m Still Here mention came amid a larger series of X updates from Ye, whose latest public embrace of Nazism came just over two years after a notorious Alex Jones interview during which he expressed admiration for Hitler.
At one point, Ye said his use of a swastika on a t-shirt was intended to “show n***as that we don’t have to be afraid of white people,” adding that he recalled “gangbangers who were scared to go downtown where the white people were” during his early years in Chicago. Elsewhere, Ye said his use of the Nazi-associated symbol rendered him “unusable to users.” In another X update, seen below, Ye asked, “Can anyone think of reasons why the Nazis wouldn’t let me in?”
Also getting a mention, albeit jokingly, was the Chappelle’s Show skit in which Dave Chappelle played a blind Black man who’s also a virulent white supremacist, Clayton Bigsby. “If I tried to go to a Nazi meeting,” Ye wrote when sharing a screenshot of the Bigsby character.
Additionally, Sid Vicious’ wearing of a swastika t-shirt got a mention from Ye, who included a goat emoji when sharing a photo of the late Sex Pistols bassist alongside Nancy Spungen. The punk musician’s use of the symbol is widely regarded as an arguably hollow attempt at sheer shock value. Its use, though still condemned by many to this day, was not accompanied at the time by public declarations of “I’m a Nazi” or “I love Hitler.”
Not left out among Ye’s latest tweets was Steve Bannon, a former Trump advisor whose recent “gesture referring to Nazi ideology,” i.e. an apparent Nazi salute, was cited by France’s Jordan Bardella as the reason for his cancelation of a previously planned Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) appearance.
Elon Musk, notably, also employed a similar salute during the Trump inauguration rally in January. In a tweet shared by Ye earlier this month, he said that Musk “stole my Nazi swag.”
