Just a week after trotting his clearly uncomfortable wife onto the Grammys’ red carpet in a completely see-through dress, rapper Kanye West went on an unhinged antisemitic online posting spree. How bad? He started by declaring himself a Nazi and posting a series of inflammatory messages about Jews and women (as well as a few hardcore porn videos). A few lowlights: “Hitler was sooooo fresh,” and “JEWS WERE BETTER AS SLAVES YOU HAVE TO PUT YOUR JEWS IN THEIR PLACE AND MAKE THEM INTO YOUR SLAVES.”
It wasn’t the first time this has happened: In 2022, West went on several similar rampages. He vowed to go “death con 3 on Jewish people,” and implied that fellow rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs (currently in jail awaiting trial on racketeering and sex-trafficking charges) is controlled by a Jewish cabal. Lest we forget, he also made a bizarre appearance on InfoWars, where he again proclaimed his admiration for Adolf Hitler and performed a skit with a butterfly net called “Netanyahu” that was so unhinged even host Alex Jones was visibly uncomfortable.
West’s latest tirade ended with the deactivation of his X account—it’s not clear whether he deactivated the account himself or was booted off the platform. But even in his absence, he’s still trolling: During the Super Bowl, he ran a bizarre ad, filmed at his dentist’s office, encouraging viewers to visit his website Yeezy.com. Sunday, there were numerous products on the site, including shoes and CDs, but today, there is only one: a $20 swastika T-shirt. Given that—and everything else—it’s hard to have sympathy for West.
But we should.
Take away the fame and money, and what you have is a crazy person lashing out on a bus. America’s rambling bus stop schizos deserve help, and that includes West. It’s time for a conservatorship.
I suspect some people will be angry with me for suggesting this. Most Americans who know the word conservatorship were probably introduced to it via the “Free Britney” campaign. That’s Britney as in Britney Spears, the 2000s pop star behind early aughts classics like “. . . Baby One More Time” and “Toxic.” Her story goes something like this: Spears was a sweet Southern girl who was plunged into the spotlight by her domineering stage parents and broken by paparazzi. In 2007, as her painful divorce played out in the tabloids, Spears lost it and shaved her head before attacking a paparazzo with an umbrella. A year later, she was placed under a court-ordered conservatorship that gave her father and lawyer control over her financial and personal affairs. The arrangement was extreme: Spears would later compare her situation to slavery. She claims she was forced to work, forcibly medicated, and had no control over her personal life, including her finances.
After a drawn-out court battle, she was “freed” in November 2021. But since then, her behavior has repeatedly worried her fans. After her short-lived marriage to a significantly younger man, a fitness instructor–slash-actor-slash-model named Sam Asghari, Spears began a turbulent relationship with her ex-con handyman, which ended in a violent altercation that saw police and paramedics involved. Online, Spears has posted numerous bizarre rants—including one where she doesn’t appear to know her own age—and videos where she dances with knives. And she has repeatedly posted nude photos of herself, something that reportedly strained her relationship with her two teenage sons, who live with their father.
Clearly, her mental break in 2007 wasn’t a one-time thing. Combined with her recent activity, it raises the question: Shouldn’t someone watch out for her? And would West benefit from the same oversight?
Sure, conservators’ power should be limited, and there should be greater oversight in place to ensure that people aren’t being exploited. Spears’s story was terrible, but as is often the case with mental health—see mass deinstitutionalization, which has ballooned the prison population—the response has been to decry conservatorship as an institution instead of taking the steps needed to reform it. Because, like it or not, some people are too mentally ill to be left in complete control of their own lives.
That would appear to include West. He’s completely wrecked his own public image by becoming the most famous antisemite in America, and his behavior toward his wife, Bianca Censori, certainly seems abusive: West repeatedly trots her out naked in public in what appears to be some kind of bizarre psychosexual humiliation ritual. This is not a sane person. Although it should be noted that last week West insisted he’d been misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2016, and claimed that “it’s really a case of autism that I have.”
At a certain point, the mentally ill have already lost their autonomy to whatever disease ails them. Allowing that to continue spinning out, unmitigated, is crueler than placing someone under a conservatorship, particularly if our leaders finally stand up and deliver the reforms the system so desperately needs.
West needs help. He needs supervision. West needs to be protected from West.