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In addition to all the other things he’s proven himself to be over the last few years—a spewer of anti-semitic bile, a champion-tier bridge burner, a failed school administrator, etc.—Kanye West (who legally changed his name to Ye a few years back) has retained his credentials as one of pop culture’s great attention-seeking missiles. Observe, for instance, the instantly deforming impact West had earlier today, when he showed up at the ongoing trial of his old pal Sean “Diddy” Combs. Press reports about the trial instantly shifted from the (almost wrapped-up) prosecution arguments, and instead zeroed in on West. Which is a pretty good deal for a guy showing up, getting his own private room to view the trial, and then bailing after what sounds like about 40 minutes of not getting attention.
West barely talked to press as he entered the Manhattan federal court on Friday morning, giving a quick “Yes” when asked if he was there to support Combs, who’s on trial for racketeering, sex trafficking, and transportation to engage in prostitution charges. West wasn’t allowed into the courtroom proper, and was apparently instead brought to an overflow room that was specially opened up for him to watch the trial alone on closed-circuit TV. He stayed there for 40 minutes while reporters apparently went, like, Scooby-Doo in a federal courthouse, trying to find him. A short time later, reports began circulating that West had exited the courthouse, and everybody got back to the boring business of watching one of the biggest name in modern music being prosecuted for allegedly coercing people into sexual servitude.
Attempting to parse what, precisely, West was trying to achieve here is a fool’s errand, but it is worth noting that he’s supposedly going to release a new solo album, Bully, this weekend. (Kanye West deadlines are some of the least-reliable in the business, but that’s the supposed game plan for now.) In recent months, he courted some other Combs-related controversy by releasing a song that supposedly contained vocals from the mogul, appearing alongside raps by his daughter North.
[via The Hollywood Reporter]