N.O.R.E. has made an apology in relation to the most recent Drink Champs episode involving Kanye West.
As reported earlier, Ye made inaccurate claims concerning the cause of death in the murder of George Floyd during the interview. Floyd's family is contemplating suing Ye for "false comments concerning the manner of his death," according to civil rights attorney Lee Merritt.
Ye sought to link Floyd's death in 2020 at the hands of since-convicted Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin to fentanyl. Floyd's death has officially deemed a homicide, thus this is complete fiction. In particular, Chauvin is incarcerated after being found guilty of Floyd's murder.
N.O.R.E. apologized to Floyd's family and indicated that Drink Champs will use editing in the future during a call-in appearance on Monday's Breakfast Club.
“I just wanna be honest, I support freedom of speech,” N.O.R.E. said. “I support anybody, you know, not being censored. But I do not support anybody being hurt. I did not realize that the George Floyd statements on my show was so hurtful. And you gotta realize, it was the first five minutes of the show. When he walked in, he told my producer, he said that if he’ll stop filming, he’ll walk out.”
N.O.R.E. and the crew did not want to have a "Birdman moment," according to him (Birdman walked out of a Breakfast Club interview in 2016). N.O.R.E. also stated that he "checked" Ye on his words later in the show, however, he admitted that he was "already drunk" at the time, so his retort may have gone unnoticed.
“I apologize to the George Floyd family,” he said. “I apologize to anybody that was hurt by Kanye West’s comments.”
N.O.R.E. was questioned at the 3:40 mark in the video below why Drink Champs bothered with the interview at all considering Ye's previous antisemitic sentiments. N.O.R.E. reacted with an explanation centered on how Ye has handled him in previous one-on-one circumstances, while also condemning Ye's current rhetoric.
“I don’t support none of it,” he said. “I don’t support the George Floyd comments, I don’t support the antisemitic [comments]. That’s all I have is Jewish friends, all I have is Black friends. That’s it.”
During a Hot 97 visit, N.O.R.E. also addressed the interview, as seen here. Despite the new events, N.O.R.E. stated on both the Breakfast Club and Hot 97 that he will not give up on Ye.
The latest Ye-featuring Drink Champs episode was not included in the list of episodes on Apple Podcasts at the time of writing.