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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Peony Hirwani,Johanna Chisholm and Graeme Massie

Kanye West news - live: George Floyd family suing rapper over false claims, as antisemitism row escalates

NewsNation

Kanye West claims George Floyd’s killer didn’t really have knee on his neck

The mother of George Floyd’s daughter has sued Kanye West for $250m in the wake of his controversial comments about Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minnesota police officer.

And now Floyd’s family has issued a cease-and-desist letter to West for the comments he made on the Drink Champs podcast, which has now been taken down.

In the lawsuit filed by Roxie Washington, the mother of Gianna Floyd, lawyers said West made “false statements about George Floyd’s death to promote his brands, and increase marketing value and revenue for himself, his business partners, and associates.”

Earlier, The Drink Champs interview was pulled from YouTube, Rolling Stone reports.

The YouTube show’s host, N.O.R.E., apologised for the contents of the interview that he said “hurt” people during a Monday morning radio show appearance. Hours later, the video had been made private on YouTube while the podcast version of the conversation was removed from both Spotify and Apple Music earlier in the day.

Late in the night on Monday, Tesla billionaire and potential Twitter owner Elon Musk appeared to tease a possible business collaboration with West after he tweeted out a meme - and then deleted -that hinted at a team-up with the rapper and Parler, the right-wing social network he is in the process of acquiring.

Chris Cuomo later took the rapper to task on Monday night, after West claimed he “doesn’t believe” in the term antisemitism and went on a rant about “the Jewish underground media mafia” attacking him.

“There is no Jewish media cabal mafia,” said Cuomo. “That is a figment of either your imagination or projection of a prejudice ... You may have had bad business dealings with people, it’s about those people, it’s not about the religion or faith.”

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