CNN
NY
Kanye West has fired back at those criticizing him for an awkward incident involving a wheelchair-bound concertgoer.
The uncomfortable moment happened during West’s Friday concert in Sydney, when the rapper stopped the event midshow and demanded that his audience stand. The Grammy winner didn’t resume the show until he confirmed that a pair of audience members who weren’t standing were unable to do so because they were handicapped.
After that incident, the Twitterverse went into overdrive with anger at West — and on Monday, the rapper and his wife, Kim Kardashian, offered a defense.
During a performance in Brisbane on Monday, West took a moment to explain his side of the story and criticize the media for highlighting Friday’s misunderstanding. He called out the likes of Matt Lauer, Michael Strahan, Whoopi Goldberg and Robin Roberts and asked them to look at him from a new perspective before covering stories on his actions.
“They’ve got this thing where they want the masses, the people who’ve never even heard one of my albums, to somehow read a headline that reads negative and to think that I’m a bad person. But the thing is ... I’m a married Christian man with a family,” West said during his five-minute speech. “At my concerts, I make sure everybody has as good a time as possible. So all this demonizing me, it ain’t going to work after a while.