The episode’s host Adam Driver reportedly walked off stage during the speech.
Saturday Night Live returned to the screens this weekend, hosted by BlacKkKlansman and Star Wars star Adam Driver, with Kanye West on board as the musical guest (apparently replacing Ariana Grande who pulled out for emotional reasons).
Just hours after he announced that he would no longer be going by the name Kanye West (it is Ye now, but for the sake of clarity and those not caught up with the name change, we’ll still use Kanye), he took the stage across the night and performed his latest single ‘I Love It’ with Lil’ Pimp, a currently untitled new track sung by Teyana Taylor on which Kanye raps the bridge, and finally, ‘Ghost Town’, for which he was accompanied on stage by Ty Dolla $ign, Kid Cudi, and 070 Shake.
However, it was his final stage appearance that ended up getting the most attention.
Just when it was expected that he would reveal his new album Yandhi would be dropped (still no sign of that, by the way…), he instead used the time during the end credits to deliver a sort of sermon which involved defending Trump, attacking ‘welfare’, and stating that “There’s so many times I talk to, like, a white person about this and they say, ‘How could you like Trump? He’s racist’. Well, uh, if I was concerned about racism I would’ve moved out of America a long time ago.”
The Daily Beast reported that the audience booed him during the speech, producers on SNL cut the speech short for time as the end credits ran out, and a member of the audience tweeted “I am here to tell you that Adam [Driver] literally walked off the stage during Kanye’s speech praising trump. We thanked him for leaving and he waved at us.”
Comedian Chris Rock caught the majority of his speech on his Instagram Stories, and can be audibly heard saying “Oh my god” as the crowd reacts:
https://twitter.com/StoryofEverest/status/1046278313277362176
Producer and occasional Kanye-collaborator Mike Dean (he worked on the majority of Yeezus and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy) was backstage and caught a longer take of the speech, saying that SNL should have extended the show for Kanye:
https://twitter.com/therealmikedean/status/1046285649165406208
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