Kanye West might want to think twice the next time he tries to force everyone at one his concerts to get on their feet.
The notoriously volatile rapper, who has just finished up his Australian Yeezus tour, has already been making headlines for calling out a member of his entourage on stage, his pop up shop, and a brief visit to a Melbourne hospital.
According to Billboard, over the weekend West performed in Sydney, and again the show is making headlines after he rapper stopped the show until everybody in the audience stood up.
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“I can’t do this show until everybody stand up. Unless you got a handicap pass and you get special parking and s**t,” he shouted. The whole crowd proceeded to stand up, and West boasted about being able to spot anyone in the audience who wasn’t standing, which is when he noticed the two fans who were still seated.
Incredulous that the two weren’t standing up, West asked the crowd whether the two people should be forced to move seats. In a video posted on YouTube, the crowd at Qantas Credit Union Arena in Sydney can be heard jeering at the “two people who don’t want to stand up” and chanting “Stand up!”
The reason these two audience members weren’t standing may make the rapper think twice in the future; one was in a wheelchair, and the other had a prosthetic limb.
But even after this was conveyed to the West and realising he was shaming a group of disabled fans, he didn’t let up and sent a member of his team up to the stands to verify that the two audience members were in fact disabled.
“This is the longest I’ve had to wait to do the song — it’s unbelievable,” West lamented.
Finally, after repeated berating from the rapper, West was finally satisfied with the fans’ reason for not standing. “You say it’s cool, it’s a wheelchair?” West asked one more time before finally launching into the song.
Sources close to West have since come out defending the rapper claiming he had “no malicious intent”. Regardless, the lack of sensitivity around disability here is astounding. Imagine how these two fans must have felt as West urged the crowd to shame them for not standing.
You can watch the cringeworthy incident below:
