Do we like Kanye West?
Our score: 2 out of 10. A long run of his own posts and stunts that drew condemnation from Jewish groups and others, with an apology and a few good deeds as the only balance.
The slide went public in October 2022. He posted that he was going “death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE”, and his talent agency, Balenciaga, JP Morgan and Adidas all cut ties with him. Celebrities from Kim Kardashian to Sarah Silverman publicly condemned the posts.
The harm test is where he really falls over. In February 2025 he ran a Super Bowl ad pointing to a website selling only a swastika T-shirt, which the ADL condemned and said was coded as “Heil Hitler”. In April 2025 he also fired off a burst of crude posts about trans people, including one joking about dating a trans woman. That's his own work, not guilt by association.
In January 2026 he bought a Wall Street Journal ad titled “To Those I've Hurt”. In it he wrote that he is not a Nazi or an antisemite and apologised to the Black community too. In a follow-up interview he said the letter “isn't about reviving my commerciality”. Some critics note his apologies have tended to land before a new release, so it's worth watching what he does next, not just what he writes.
The consequences kept coming. In April 2026 the festival Wireless dropped him after the UK Home Office pulled his entry authorisation, following a booking that sponsors and Jewish groups had objected to. The festival's boss defended it, saying forgiveness and second chances are becoming a lost virtue. Reports say shows in France, Poland, Italy and Czechia were also halted.
The legal record is mixed rather than damning. In May 2026 a Los Angeles federal jury found him liable for copyright infringement over a sample in a Donda demo, a $438,558 verdict, which his spokesperson called a “failed shakedown”. Separately, an unnamed man alleged in a civil suit that Ye punched him at a 2024 dinner. TheWrap reported that no criminal charges were filed and that Ye's side hadn't responded.
The good stuff is thin on the record we could check. In 2015 he gave $133,000 to Donda's House, the Chicago arts program for young people he co-founded. That's a genuine act, but it is old, and it doesn't outweigh years of his own words and stunts.