David Schwimmer applauded the sponsors who dropped out of Wireless Festival over headliner Kanye West, and questioned whether the rapper had actually earned the public’s forgiveness for his antisemitic remarks.
After Pepsi, PayPal and Diageo all pulled out as sponsors of the U.K.’s Wireless Festival, where West, known now as Ye, is set to headline, the “Friends” star praised them all as “companies with moral clarity.”
“Unlike Wireless and Festival Republic, they decided not to platform an artist who became one of the most recognizable hate-mongering bigots in the world — while the other orgs seek only to profit from one,” he wrote in a note posted to Instagram Monday evening. “For years, Ye used his considerable celebrity to promote hate and violence against Jews, spreading antisemitic lies and stereotypes to his 33 million followers — more than twice the number of Jewish people alive today.”
As Schwimmer went on, he reminded his followers that it was less than a year ago that West released the song “Heil Hitler” and sold merchandise with the swastika on it.
While Schwimmer acknowledged that West later apologized, in which the rapper cited his mental health struggles, the actor said he still wasn’t keen to forgive him just yet.
Schwimmer speculated that the apology ad in the Wall Street Journal was likely “a PR scheme to assuage folks right before his long-planned return to the stage.”
“Remember: Ye’s apologized before, only to retract that apology and double down on his virulent hatred of Jewish people,” he said. “So, he’s launching a comeback, having recently played at SoFi Stadium in California … supported by Lauryn Hill, Travis Scott, CeeLo Green and Don Toliver — artists who seem to shrug off his history of rabid antisemitism. Or maybe endorse it? Hard to say, since none of them ever publicly denounced his past remarks.”
Per Schwimmer, Ye’s “words and actions the last few years have caused incalculable, irreparable damage.” He slammed the rapper for fueling “world wide hatred” and for inspiring “violence against Jews everywhere.”
“His erratic behavior has repeatedly shown he can’t be trusted,” Schwimmer further wrote. “It’s fine for his famous pals to pat him on the back and say, ‘It’s all good.’ But the community he has harmed most has no reason to trust his apology is authentic.”
Schwimmer called on Ye to make a “sincere” effort to “repair the damage he caused,” including pulling the song “Heil Hitler” and disavowing it, meeting with Jewish leaders and artists for a public conversation about how he can make amends and donating a portion of his Wireless profit to Jewish charitable organizations in the U.K.
“An apology letter is just that: Words on paper,” he said. “An advertisement, generating publicity before a concert tour. It does not erase years of abuse.”
While Schwimmer said that he believes in forgiveness, he stated it would take much more than the apology ad to make right with him.
“Until Ye demonstrates a commitment to building back trust — not only with the Jewish community, but with all the fans he left heartbroken and disappointed by his hateful rhetoric the last several years — he should not be granted a platform to perform,” Schwimmer said. “To do so is to be tacitly complicit in what these companies know to be wrong, unethical and immoral.”
Before concluding his message, Schwimmer advised Budweiser, Beat Box Beverages, Drip Water and Big Green Coach to also pull out of Wireless.
Read Schwimmer’s full statement above.
The post David Schwimmer Questions ‘Hate-Mongering Bigot’ Kanye West’s Apology, Calls on Other Wireless Festival Sponsors to Back Out appeared first on TheWrap.
