I am not into entertainment news, as yall know, but when something comes up relevant to my interests, I speak on it. In this case, Ye, formally known as Kanye West, was interviewed on the hip-hop podcast Drink Champs, hosted and co-owned by N.O.R.E (Noreaga) and Dj EFN. I do not have much of an interest in repeating what Ye said. Still, it was a false statement around the death of George Floyd, a man in Minneapolis, Minnesota, who was killed by law enforcement in May 2020. The officer was later convicted and sentenced to prison. So I have to lay out that brief context.
I am not here to point out that Ye was wrong and that the show should not have aired. Drink Champ’s host apologized and removed the show, but not after publicly acknowledging the success in the viewership and sharing. My interest in bringing this up is they had to remove it. It wasn’t a moral call they made on behalf of the hurt and pain the family may endure from the lies shared on their platform.
The George Floyd family, through their attorney, announced that they would seek a lawsuit for the false information shared on their show naming Kanye West and Candace Owens in a potential case. Just to put context around the mention of Candace Owens, Ye, in the interview, referenced a documentary where he got the false information, and this documentary is the work of Candace Owens, which she followed up with on her Twitter page (this is so gossipy, but I am getting somewhere, I promise).
Do you all remember just recently, we talked extensively about the lawsuit and blogger/vlogger Tasha K, filed by entertainer/rapper Cardi B. Cardi B was awarded almost four million dollars because the jury found, in that case, Tasha K guilty of spreading a lie, which caused Cardi B damages that she was able to prove in court. In this case, it came up that had Tasha K removed the video (s) from her social media page, even though it could have been duplicated in other places, she would’ve shown remorse for the damages she caused with the lies and that alone would have played-over well with the jury and judge…she doubled down, never removed the video(s) until having the verdict was delivered, penalties were assigned and then an injunction was filed where the court ordered her to take them down…now in that case as of October 2022 the court has demanded that she pay the penalties directly to the court in a “supersedeas bond” that would cover the total amount. A Supersedeas Bond (also known as an Appeal Bond) is a type of surety court bond required in a court of law when a defendant wants to appeal a ruling to a higher court while delaying the payment of a judgment. (Whew, that’s a lot!)
All that to say, a lie isn’t worth it. The Drink Champs needed to remove this rhetoric because there is now case law around this type of issue; while you cannot defame a deceased person, spreading lies in a defamatory way causes damage to the family; it also undermines the court. Although people are free to their opinion, those opinions at the expense of others come with their consequences.
