Kanye West Calls Taylor Swift “Fake Ass” In Audio Of Purported Backstage ‘SNL’ Rant

Carl Williott | February 17, 2016 7:51 pm

UPDATE: A source close to Kanye West has clarified to Complex that the backstage “outburst” or whatever you want to call it was not directed at the SNL staff, as Page Six originally reported, but was recorded “while he was venting his frustration in a private moment with his team.” The full statement is below, followed by our original post and the audio:

He did NOT yell at SNL staff. This audio was secretly recorded while he was venting his frustration in a private moment with his team. He found out his stage design was changed and taken apart under the direction of the show’s lighting director without anyone’s approval. He had spent an entire day rehearsing and a lot of hard work into the performance. Dramatic set changes were made 30 minutes before going live. It should be understandable why he was upset after being completely blindsided. Kanye was seen hugging Lorne Michaels just before the goodnights and he stayed afterwards to chat with the staff and the cast, and thanked the producers on his way out the door.

There’ve been some rumblings about a Kanye West “meltdown” backstage at Saturday Night Live that supposedly almost caused him to cancel his performance last-minute; apparently he was mad about how they changed his stage scenery. And now Page Six purports to have leaked audio of said rant.

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It’s not as Christian Bale as you might be hoping. More than a rant, it sounds like an egomaniac flexing his ego, but there are some odd detours. The clip starts off with him saying, “Look at that shit, they took my fucking stage off of SNL without asking me. Now I’m bummed” Reasonable enough. But then he brings his old obsession Taylor Swift into it, seemingly out of nowhere, though I’m sure there’s some context missing from all this.

“That and Taylor Swift, fake ass,” he says, before claiming he’s 50 percent more influential than luminaries like Stanley Kubrick and “Apostle Paul”.

Stretch out those Twitter fingers. Assemble your squads. And hear it below.

Maybe Katy Perry and Kanye’s “E.T.” has been a Taylor diss track all along.