Last week while on stage at the London Wireless Festival , Kanye West was feeling mighty frustrated about something, and voiced his opinion on it. The irate rapper told the audience:
“I want to bring my family to the movies without 30 motherf**kers following me. Everybody here, they like sex right? Sex is great when you and your partner are like, ‘Hey, this is what we both want to do.’ But if one of those people don’t want to do that, what is that called? That’s called rape. That is called violation. So if I walk around and say, ‘Look, sir, I’m not feeling so good today, I need some space, can you please not f**k with me today?’ I need cut-off space, not violation.’ I want my daughter to have that opportunity to decide whether she wants to be famous or not. I think to myself, what the f**k am I going to do, how can I change it and how can I give my daughter her childhood?”
Apparently, this rant was not well received by at least one spectator, Stacey Dash, a contributor for “cultural analysis and commentary” at Fox News and popular American actress.
“I don’t get celebrities not understanding that the paparazzi are doing their job,” she said on Fox. “For Kanye to say ‘rape,’ maybe he needs to spend some time on Rikers Island,” Dash said on Fox News’ Outnumbered Tuesday. Dash, who had appeared in a video with the rapper at one time, apparently has never cared for the outspoken West.
Kanye West and wife Kim Kardashian have been in the news frequently since the birth of their daughter, North West, and the family has been the grist in several gossip mills. People have had a lot to say on North West’s unusual name, the fact her ears are pierced, the fact that Kim allegedly doesn’t take good care of her hygiene — the list goes on and on. Poor little North has even received racial attacks while traveling on a plane.
With so much negative drama surrounding the family, it’s easy to see why Kanye might want the day off. However, the analogy he used, that the harassment they’d been getting was the same as “rape,” is somewhat extreme. Perhaps Kanye ought to familiarize himself with the difference, as Ms. Dash suggests. On the other hand, Dash did not stop at simply expressing her opinion on the show. She’s been on Twitter responding to every person who had something to say on the matter, both for and against what she had to say.
So, is this rift going to reach Jay Z proportions and end in elevator antics? Doubtful. But it would be great if each of the opposing forces took the opinion of the other into consideration. Yes, the West family needs to have the day off now and then. And yes, the paparazzi need to do there job. But there needs to be a middle ground between the two, not just with Kanye, Kim, and North, but for every other celebrity as well.
Interestingly enough, even the U.S. First Lady is annoyed with paparazzi antics lately, as evidenced in this article asking for pictures of her daughter to be removed from the media.