Kanye West may find himself at the center of a lawsuit after he falsely claimed that police didn’t kill George Floyd. Floyd died on May 25, 2020 after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for eight minutes, cutting off his air supply. However, Kanye says Floyd actually died of a fentanyl overdose.
Kanye West says George Floyd passed away because of fentanyl and that the cop’s knee “wasn’t even on his neck like that” pic.twitter.com/sVKy3VK35O
— Kurrco (@Kurrco) October 16, 2022
- Kanye West talked about George Floyd on the “Drink Champs” podcast. On the show, he discussed right wing conservative Candace Owen’s documentary, “The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM.” West watched it and believed he had some important insights to share.
- His comments didn’t seem to have much reasoning behind them. His incoherent comments insinuated that Floyd suffered a fentanyl overdose. That was the real cause of his death, West said. This despite a coroner and video footage proving otherwise. “One of the things that his two roommates said was they want a tall guy like me. And the day that he died, he said a prayer for eight minutes,” Kanye West said of George Floyd’s murder. “They hit him with the fentanyl. If you look, the guy’s knee wasn’t even on his neck like that.”
- West also compared Floyd to the late designer Virgil Abloh. “This white company Louis Vuitton is now making statues of him as a martyr. We don’t know why exactly [he died]. They said it was cancer,” he said at another point in the interview. He didn’t elaborate on the connection he’d made between the two men further.
- Floyd’s family lawyer released a statement in the wake of West’s comments. Unsurprisingly, this extremely false and harmful conspiracy theory didn’t go down well with Floyd’s family. Their lawyer, civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, said on Twitter that the family is considering filing a lawsuit against West for the comments. “While one cannot defame the dead, the family of #GeorgeFloyd is considering suit for Kanye’s false statements about the manner of his death,” Meritt wrote. “Claiming Floyd died from fentanyl not the brutality established criminally and civilly undermines & diminishes the Floyd family’s fight.”
While one cannot defame the dead, the family of #GeorgeFloyd is considering suit for Kanye’s false statements about the manner of his death.
Claiming Floyd died from fentanyl not the brutality established criminally and civilly undermines & diminishes the Floyd family’s fight.
— Lee Merritt (@MerrittForTexas) October 16, 2022
