‘The Shop’ won’t air Kanye West’s episode, citing his ‘hate speech’

By Chloe Melas, CNN

Kanye West will not be featured on “The Shop: Uninterrupted.”

West, who has legally changed his name to Ye, taped an episode of the YouTube conversation series from Lebron James and Maverick Carter earlier this week. In a statement to CNN on Wednesday, Carter said the episode will not air.

“After talking to Kanye directly, I believed he was capable of a thoughtful discussion about his recent statements and actions. Unfortunately, he used The Shop to reiterate more hate speech and very ugly stereotypes,” Carter, who is also CEO Springhill Company, which produces the series, said in a statement. “We have made the decision not to air this episode of any of Kanye’s remarks.”

Carter did not specify what was said during the taping.

“While The Shop embraces thoughtful and difficult topics, we have zero tolerance for hate speech and will not air it on any of our channels under any circumstances. I take full responsibility for believing Kanye wanted a different conversation. While I understand this may leak, I hope others choose to do the right thing and not give hate speech an audience of any kind,” Carter added.

A source familiar with the situation told CNN that James was not present during the taping of the episode.

CNN has reached out to a representative of West for comment.

The decision comes just days after West was suspended from Instagram and his Twitter account restricted for violating the platforms’ policies over posts that were criticized as antisemitic.

In the past week, West has also stirred controversy for dressing himself and models at his fashion show in shirts printed with the words “White Lives Matter,” a phrase used by White supremacist groups and deemed a hate slogan by the Anti-Defamation League.

West later defended the stunt in an interview with Fox News.

This story has been updated to reflect that new episodes of “The Shop: Uninterrupted” release exclusively on YouTube. Seasons 1 – 4 stream of the series stream on HBO Max, which like CNN is part of Warner Bros. Discovery.

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