Kanye West Twitter suspended: Alex Jones interview, Hitler comments and swastika post explained

Kanye West has continued to spark further controversy following an appearance on InfoWars, a programme hosted by US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, in which he repeatedly said he “loves Hitler”. The rapper has also had his Twitter account suspended by Elon Musk, the new owner of the social media platform.

The news comes after the rapper was previously suspended from Twitter for antisemitic tweets, resulting in a number of companies severing ties with him, including his own talent agency, Balenciaga, Adidas and GAP.

This is everything you need to know.

What did Kanye West say on InfoWars?

West appeared on show InfoWars, hosted by Jones, alongside Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. Throughout the interview, West wore a black mask that covered the entirety of his face.

During the show, Jones said that “the Nazi’s in my view were thugs that shook people down and did a lot of really bad things”, to which West interrupted and said: “They did good things too, we’ve got to stop dissing the Nazis all the time.”

West added that he doesn’t like “the word evil next to Nazis”, and added “I love Jewish people but I also love Nazis”. He said that the “Jewish media has made us feel like the Nazis and Hitler have never offered anything of value to the world”.

At one point Jones said to West: “You’re not Hitler, you’re not a Nazi, so you don’t deserve to be demonised.”

To which West replied: “I see good things about Hilter also. I love everyone and Jewish people are not going to tell me, “You can love us and you can love what we’re doing to you with the contracts and you can love what we’re doing with the pornography, but this guy that invented highways, invented the very microphone that I use as a musician, you can’t say out loud that this person ever did anything good”, and I’m done with that.

“I’m done with the classifications, every human being has something of value and something they brought to the table, especially Hitler.”

Jones attempted to have West say that the thing he liked about Hitler and the Nazis were the “Hugo Boss uniforms” and that was it, but West said: “No, there’s a lot of things that I love about Hitler, a lot of things.”

Towards the end of the interview, Jones said: “I don’t like Hitler, I know you’re trying to be shocking.”

However West interrupted and said: “I’m not trying to be shocking, I like Hitler. The holocaust is not what happened, let’s look at the facts of that, and Hitler has a lot of redeeming qualities

During the show West also declared himself to be “pro-Putin” and “pro-Russia”, in agreement to a statement made by Fuentes.

Has he been suspended from Twitter again?

West’s Twitter account has been suspended once again after violating the platform’s policy against inciting violence. The rapper posted a series of erratic tweets, including ones that allegedly showed texts between himself and Musk, praise for Balenciaga following recent backlash against the company and a picture of a swastika merged with the Star of David.

Replying to one Twitter user, who asked him to “fix Kanye”, Musk replied: “I tried my best.

“Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended.”

Musk followed up with another tweet which said: “Just clarifying that [West’s] account is being suspended for incitement to violence, not an unflattering pic of me being hosed by Ari. Frankly, I found those pics to be helpful motivation to lose weight!”

He also tweeted out the acronym “FAFO”, which stands for “f**k around and find out”.

Following his suspension, West’s verified account on former US President Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform shared a screenshot that showed he was locked out of his account for 12 hours.

It comes as the parent company of alternative messaging platform Parler announced that the rapper would no longer be buying the platform.

What has the response been like?

West’s behaviour has become the subject of great discussion on Twitter, as many took the platform to share their thoughts.

One person wrote: “Kanye West just said he “saw some good things” about Hitler on Alex Jones’ show, wrap it up, it’s so over dude, just quit while you can, you can’t come back from that.”

Another tweeted: “As a former die hard Kanye fan… it’s not mental health, it’s not because he is a “musical genius” or his mom dying or any other reason. Ye is just a garbage human who doesn’t want to live by any normal social codes.”

“You know Kanye has reached a point of no return when he makes Alex Jones look normal,” another wrote.

American actor Josh Gad (Frozen, Avenue 5) wrote: “It’s not what Kanye West says that scares me. It’s that he has 30 million followers who listen to his insanity on top of a cheerleader in the form of the current owner of this platform [Elon Musk]. No one who says “I love Hitler” should be allowed any oxygen on any social platform (period).”