On Monday, Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, apologized for antisemitic rants in a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal. In the note, titled “To Those I’ve Hurt,” he addressed years of “reckless” displays of antisemitism, including a series of X posts he made in February declaring that he was a Nazi and praising Adolf Hitler, as well as the swastika T-shirts he released that month. “I am not a Nazi or an antisemite,” he wrote in Monday’s ad. “I love Jewish people.”
Ye, who’s now 48 years old, wrote that he’d sustained a brain injury in a car accident 25 years ago, which he said went undiagnosed until 2023. The “medical oversight caused serious damage to my mental health and led to my bipolar type-1 diagnosis,” he wrote. “I regret and am deeply mortified by my actions in that state, and am committed to accountability, treatment, and meaningful change.”
Ye, fka Kanye West, takes out a full-page in the Wall Street Journal to apologize to the Black community, and for antisemitism:
“I lost touch with reality” pic.twitter.com/Po8s4gNz5P
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) January 26, 2026
As a result of the damage to his frontal lobe and his ensuing bipolar disorder, Ye wrote that he “lost touch with reality” and “became detached” from his true self. “In that fractured state, I gravitated towards the most destructive symbol I could find, the swastika, and even sold t-shirts bearing it,” he went on. “In early 2025, I fell into a four-month long manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life … There were times I didn’t want to be here anymore.”
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Per NBC News, Ye previously apologized for his antisemitic comments in a December 2023 Instagram post written in Hebrew, in which he noted, “It was not my intention to offend or demean, and I deeply regret any pain I may have caused.” Last February, in the midst of a barrage of X posts, he then rescinded that apology, writing at the time, “I’m never apologizing for my Jewish comments.”
Ye, who’s set to release his album, Bully, at the end of the week, concluded his letter by thanking the Black community for holding him down “through all the highs and lows and the darkest of times,” and his wife Bianca Censori, who he says encouraged him to get help. He promised to find his “new baseline” by centering therapy, exercise, and meditation. “I’m not asking for sympathy, or a free pass, though I aspire to earn your forgiveness,” he wrote. “I write today to simply ask for your patience and understanding as I find my way home.”
