Forbes has announced Kanye West is officially a billionaire.
The rapper-turned-sneaker-mogul was featured on the cover of Forbes in August of last year, but at the time, they didn’t call him a billionaire – something he was not happy about.
In November, he told The Hollywood Reporter, “When I did Forbes, I showed them a $890 million receipt and they still didn’t say ‘billionaire.’ …When people say it’s crass to call yourself a billionaire, I say I might legally change my name to Christian Genius Billionaire Kanye West for a year until y’all understand exactly what it is … It will be on the license plate.”
When the magazine released their annual billionaire’s list earlier this month, he still wasn’t included.
He had reportedly texted a Forbes journalist, saying, “You know what you’re doing… You’re toying with me and I’m not finna lye [sic] down and take it anymore in Jesus name.”
Over the weekend, Forbes announced that “New information about Kanye West’s deal with Adidas for sneaker brand Yeezy convinced Forbes to call the entrepreneur and musician a billionaire.” Based on their numbers, he’s worth $1.3 Billion.
So, all good now, right? Well, not exactly…
But, Kanye reportedly claims he’s worth way more than Forbes’ valuation and is said to have texted the editors: “It’s not a billion. It’s 3.3 billion [sic] since no one at Forbes knows how to count.”
In other Kanye-related news…
One of Kanye’s producers for the “Famous” track, Havoc of Mobb Deep, says Taylor Swift should “chill out” about Kanye’s lyrics about her in the song.
“I think artists are artists, and she should really chill out. It’s not that serious,” he tells The Daily Beast.
“She has an awesome career, and she don’t need to be fighting with another awesome artist,” he continues. “Freedom of speech is alive and well — or should be — and she shouldn’t be going out there complaining about not clearing this.”
He says “He was giving props—it wasn’t like he was trying to diss you [Taylor].”
“Some people are a little too sensitive for the game but this is the game that we’re in,” he adds. “There’s no time for soft skin—and I’m not just saying that because she’s a female. Everyone has to display tough skin for this industry since everyone is gonna come at you, and you might like it or you might not.”
As a refresher, when “Famous” dropped back in 2016, Kanye’s lyrics “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. Why? I made that b***h famous” reignited the feud between Kanye and Taylor Swift.
Kanye claimed that Taylor had approved the lyrics. Taylor disputed this, even when Kim shared an audio recording of Taylor and Kanye discussing the lyrics. However, Taylor made it clear that Kanye never mentioned that he was going to call her a “b—h” in the song.
“Where is the video of Kanye telling me he was going to call me ‘that b—h’ in his song? It doesn’t exist because it never happened,” she wrote in a statement posted on her social media in 2016. “You don’t get to control someone’s emotional response to being called ‘that b—h’ in front of the entire world.”
Last month, a video of Kanye making the phone call to Taylor Swift discussing his “Famous” lyrics surfaced online.
In the video (circa 2016), Kanye is seen talking on the phone, with Taylor on the other end.
Kanye begins by telling Taylor that he mentions her in a “controversial line” in his upcoming single and was hoping to get her support.
“What does it say?” she asks him.
Kanye first explains that he’d worked on the lyrics for about eight months, before warning her that “it’s the most controversial. So it’s gonna go Eminem a little bit, so can you brace yourself for a second?”
“Is it gonna be mean?” Taylor asks.
“No, I don’t think it’s mean,” Kanye replied.
He then rapped the lyric: “I feel like Taylor Swift might owe me sex.”
And Taylor, seemed to be okay with it, laughingly saying, “That’s not mean.”
Another video, which appears to be the continuation of their earlier conversation, has also surfaced, where Taylor could be heard saying:
“I need to think about it because you hear something for the first time, you need to think about it because it is absolutely crazy. I’m glad it’s not mean though,” she explains. “It doesn’t feel mean, but like, oh my God, the build-up you gave it. I thought it was gonna be like, ‘That stupid, dumb, b***h,’ like, but it’s not.”
Many fans have pointed out, that nowhere in the video does Kanye mention the lyrics in question, which says, “I made that b—h famous.”
At the time, Taylor went on Instagram Story to ~sort of~ address the whole sitch while shining the light on something she thinks is more important.
“Instead of answering those who are asking how I feel about the video footage that was leaked, proving that I was telling the truth the whole time about *that call* (you know, the one that was illegally recorded, that somebody edited and manipulated in order to frame me and put me, my family, and fans through hell for 4 years)… SWIPE UP to see what really matters,” Taylor wrote.
Swiping up would lead fans to a donation page for Feeding America.
In another Instagram Story, Taylor shared that she’d been donating to organizations amidst the coronavirus crisis, and urged her fans to do the same.
“The World Health Organization and Feeding America are some of the organizations I’ve been donating to,” she wrote. “If you have the ability to, please join me in donating during this crisis.”
She also provided another link – this time to the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
Kim also went on a Twitter to air their side and defend her hubby.
“@taylorswift13 has chosen to reignite an old exchange – that at this point in time feels very self-serving given the suffering millions of real victims are facing right now,” Kim wrote, adding, “I didn’t feel the need to comment a few days ago, and I’m actually really embarrassed and mortified to be doing it right now, but because she continues to speak on it, I feel I’m left without a choice but to respond because she is actually lying.”
“To be clear, the only issue I ever had around the situation was that Taylor lied through her publicist who stated that “Kanye never called to ask for permission…” They clearly spoke so I let you all see that. Nobody ever denied the word “b—h” was used without her permission,” she continued.
“At the time when they spoke the song had not been fully written yet, but as everyone can see in the video, she manipulated the truth of their actual conversation in her statement when her team said she ‘declined and cautioned him about releasing a song with such a strong misogynistic message,” Kim wrote in another two-part tweet.
“I never edited the footage (another lie) – I only posted a few clips on Snapchat to make my point and the full video that recently leaked doesn’t change the narrative,” she said
“Kanye as an artist has every right to document his musical journey and process, just like she recently did through her documentary,” she tweeted, adding, “Kanye has documented the making of all of his albums for his personal archive, however has never released any of it for public consumption & the call between the two of them would have remained private or would have gone in the trash had she not lied & forced me to defend him.”
“This will be the last time I speak on this because honestly, nobody cares,” Kim concluded. “Sorry to bore you all with this. I know you are all dealing with more serious and important matters.”
Kim’s sister, Khloe Kardashian, also hopped on the platform to show her sister some support.
“I was about to go take my a** to sleep but then I just saw my sister post a couple tweets. ♥️♥️♥️♥️ ” she wrote. “Kimberly you betta!!!!!!!!!!!♥️♥️♥️♥️” Khloe tweeted.
Since Kim did also call out Taylor’s publicist in her tweets, Tree Paine clapped back with a tweet of her own.
“I’m Taylor’s publicist and this is my UNEDITED original statement. Btw, when you take parts out, that’s editing,” Tree wrote, along with the statement she first shared when the drama between Taylor and Kanye first went down back in 2016. “P.S. who did you guys piss off to leak that video?”
