Kanye West Thought Kim Kardashian Might Leave Him After Slavery Comments, He Reveals in New Interview

Kanye West thought that Kim Kardashian might leave him after he made those infamous controversial statements about slavery.

“There was a moment where I felt like after TMZ, maybe a week after that, I felt like the energy levels were low, and I called different family members and was asking, you know, ‘Was Kim thinking about leaving me after TMZ?’ ” West said in a new interview with the New York Times. “So that was a real conversation.”

As he refers to, West stirred up quite a bit of controversy earlier this year when he went on TMZ Live and made some jarring comments on slavery.

“When you hear about slavery for 400 years — for 400 years?” West said while speaking to the outlet. “That sounds like a choice. You was there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all? We’re mentally in prison.”

Now, in the new interview, West is defending himself, saying that his statement was misconstrued.

“I said the idea of sitting in something for 400 years sounds — sounds — like a choice to me, I never said it’s a choice. I never said slavery itself — like being shackled in chains — was a choice,” West explained. “That’s why I went from slave to 400 years to mental prison to this and that. If you look at the clip you see the way my mind works.”

“I think an extreme thing; I adjust it, I adjust it, I adjust it,” West went on to say. “That’s the way I get to it, but I have to push to, you know, the furthest concept possible.”

When directly asked if he believes that American slavery was a “choice,” West firmly stated that he “never said that,” later revealing how he would handle the situation if he had to do it over again.

“I wouldn’t frame a one-liner or a headline,” West said. “What I would say is actually it’s literally like I feel like I’m in court having to justify a robbery that I didn’t actually commit, where I’m having to somehow reframe something that I never said.”

“I feel stupid to have to say out loud that I know that being put on the boat was — but also I’m not backing down, bro,” he continued. “What I will do is I’ll take responsibility for the fact that I allowed my voice to be used back to back in ways that were not protective of it when my voice means too much.”

Ultimately, West and Kardashian appear to have a strong bond that is unwavering, as evident by the many album listening parties she has accompanied him on around the U.S. in the past month.