Drake Exposes Kanye West’s Betrayal of Him During Lebron James’ HBO Talk Show ‘The Shop’

LeBron James’ new HBO talk show, The Shop and featured a tell-all interview with Drake, who finally opened up about his relationship with Kanye West.

James has already had several high profile guests on The Shop for long, contemplative talks. The second episode featured Drake, who addressed everything from his high-profile beefs to fatherhood and retirement. Notably, he spoke about his issues with Kanye West, which became timely as the episode aired not long after West’s White House visit.

“I ended up linking with Ye, and he sold me on this whole speech of like, ‘I’m in a great place, I’m making money, and I’m a father, and I wanna be Quincy Jones and help you, but in order to do that, you’ve gotta be transparent with me,’” he said. “‘And you gotta play me your music, and you gotta tell me when you’re dropping.’ And so I was in the studio, guess we all kind of felt a genuine vibe from it. So I play him my music, and I told him when I was dropping.”

Drake then went out to Wyoming with West, where the two helped each other on music. He confirmed that the beat to West’s “Lift Yourself” was meant to be his, but mostly they worked on West’s upcoming projects.

“I spent all my time, pretty much working on his stuff,” Drake said bluntly. “And again, I left Wyoming with ‘Lift Yourself’ and a pat on the back. Alright, I’ll try to make the most of this and hopefully he sends some more things through. By the way, I’m in Wyoming, I play him ‘March 14’ I send him a picture of my son. I tell him I’m having trouble with my son’s mother. We had a conversation.”

Drake seemed to imply that it was West who armed Pusha T with information about his private life, which came out later in the diss tracks the two exchanged. Meanwhile, he himself was upset to find that West had suddenly rearranged his own album release schedule, conflicting heavily with his own plans.

“I wake up, and all these dates are out — all around June 15. Then the next two days, I wake up to this text from him, passive like, ‘Yo, I love you brother,’” he said. “‘Lift Yourself’ comes out with him just talking nonsense. ‘Oh this guy’s trolling me.’ This was a manipulative, ‘I wanna break you’ thing. So I said alright. I’m gonna go back to distancing myself again. I know what this is.”

The real anger came later, Drake said, when the diss tracks from Pusha T began.

“Then, the first album drops [Pusha T’s Daytona]. And of course there’s a diss song towards me that you produced, that’s talking about writing?” he said, addressing an imaginary West. “I was just there with you, as friends, helping you. And now you’re dissing me. So I’m like, man, this is dark.”

The rapper had trouble containing his anger as he recalled the subsequent tracks, some of which went after his son, his private life and even a close friend suffering from multiple sclerosis.

“People love to say, like rap purists and people who just love confrontation, they love to say, ‘There’s no rules in this s—.’ But there are f—ing rules in this s—,” he exclaimed. “And I’m gonna tell you something, I knew something was gonna come up about my kid. They had to add the deadbeat thing to make it more appealing, which is fine. I understand that. Even that, I was like, OK. The mom and dad thing, whatever.”

“You don’t even know my family,” he went on. “But I’ma tell you, wishing death on my friend that has MS? I study rap battles for a living. Now when you mention defenseless people who are sick in the hospital, that passed away, that really sent me to a place where I just believed then, and believe now, that there’s just a price that you have to pay for that. It’s over. You’re gonna get… someone’s gonna f— punch you in the f—ing face. The s—’s done, the event’s over. I wanted to do other things. I didn’t wanna further your reputation or your career by rapping back at you and having this exchange. And that was it for me.”

The Shop airs on Fridays at 9:30 p.m. ET on HBO. Full episodes are available on HBO Go and HBO Now.