It’s turning into the break-up from hell, and it’s impossible to look away.
With a combined wealth of $2.1 billion (£1.6 billion) and almost 300 million Instagram followers between them — not to mention four children and a history of histrionics (him) — the dissolution of Kimye was never going to be low-key. But the drama unfolding between Kim Kardashian, 41, and Kanye West, 44, is becoming stranger than fiction.
In case you missed it, Ye (as he is now legally known) has embarked on a laser-focused one-man smear campaign against Kardashian’s new boyfriend, Saturday Night Live’s Pete Davidson, 28. Or Skete, as Ye calls him. Why? No one truly knows.
In a series of Instagram posts so increasingly erratic they culminated in the rapper posing with a piece of paper with the words “My account is not hacked” written on it, Ye has had the internet in the palm of his hand. On Sunday, the biggest date in the US sporting calendar, Kanye was trending above Super Bowl.
Ye began his post dump by slamming ex-wife Kim for allowing their daughter North, eight, to have a TikTok account. Other posts included a badly photoshopped movie poster featuring himself, Kim and Skete at war, screenshots of messages allegedly from Skete promising not to get involved in the Kardashian-West family (to which Ye wrote “NO YOU WILL NEVER MEET MY CHILDREN”) and the revelation that long-time collaborator Kid Cudi had been removed from Ye’s upcoming album, Donda 2, for being pals with Skete.
Kardashian, who has been declared legally single by a Los Angeles court amid the ongoing divorce, posted a statement: “Kanye’s obsession with trying to control and manipulate our situation so negatively and publicly is only causing further pain for all.”
On Valentine’s Day, Kanye switched tack. He sent a pick-up truck emblazoned with the words “MY VISION IS KRYSTAL KLEAR” and full of red roses to Kim’s Hidden Hills home before posting a photo of her on a date with Davidson and the caption: “I BOUGHT THIS COAT FOR KIM BEFORE SNL... I HAVE FAITH THAT WE’LL BE BACK TOGETHER.”
But then, Ye deleted all but one post. “I’ve learned that using all caps makes people feel like I’m screaming at them,” he observed astutely. “I know sharing screenshots was jarring and came off as harassing Kim. I take accountability. I’m still learning in real time.”
Brief pause over, a few days later, Ye returned to his new favourite pastime: Skete-bashing. Kanye posted an old clip of Davidson performing a skit on Saturday Night Live back in 2018 in which he talks about the rapper’s “mental illness’”saying it’s “no excuse [for him] to be a jackass.”
‘HI SKETE YOU GOT ANYMORE MENTAL HEALTH JOKES FOR ME?’ wrote Ye, adding this latest post “is not harassment. This is payback.” Before deleting it all and cracking on with promoting Donda 2 and his Stem Player device.
In early March, things took a turn with a new music video for his track “Eazy” which seems to show a cartoon man resembling Davidson being buried alive. The song features the track: “God saved me from the crash / just so I can beat Pete Davidson’s ass.” The video finishes with the words: “EVERYONE LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER / EXCEPT SKETE YOU KNOW WHO / JK HE’S FINE.” The video has been called ‘disturbing’ and ‘scary’.
So is this all an elaborate PR stunt masterminded by Kanye for the launch of Donda 2 or the misguided actions of a jealous ex? A bit of both, says pop culture commentator Micha Frazer-Carroll. “With celebrities it’s impossible to truly separate any public behaviour from PR. It could be good PR or bad PR, but it’s always PR. There will also always be elements of reality and unreality, and there are so many people involved in events like a divorce (managers, agents etc).
What we see is probably neither ‘real’ nor ‘fake’, but something in between.”
A jeen-yuhs? The jury’s out.
