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Kanye West has said he was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder, and has now been diagnosed as autistic.
Speaking to Justin Laboy on his podcast The Download, West, who now goes by the name Ye, said his wife Bianca Censori suggested he get rediagnosed. “I went to this doctor … My wife took me to do that because she said, ‘Something about your personality doesn’t feel like it’s bipolar, I’ve seen bipolar before.’ And I’ve come to find that it’s really a case of autism that I have.”
He said the diagnosis helped him better understand some of his behavioural patterns, such as in 2018 when he wore a cap reading Make America Great Again and praised Donald Trump, including saying “the mob can’t make me not love him”.
“Autism takes you to a Rain Man thing,” West said. “‘I’ma wear this Trump hat because I like Trump in general.’ And then when people tell you to not do it, you just get on that one point. And that’s my problem.
“When fans tell me to do my album a certain way, I’ll do it the opposite way,” he added, and referred to the title of his hit song Can’t Tell Me Nothing. He mentioned his friend and former manager Don C, saying: “It’s been so hard on him because he loves me. It’s so difficult for them, because this is like a grown man – you can’t take control of his bank account, you can’t control what I’m saying on Twitter.”
Autism is not a mental illness. But in 2020 Kim Kardashian, then West’s wife, similarly acknowledged the difficulty of managing West’s mental health. “Those that understand mental illness or even compulsive behaviour know that the family is powerless unless the member is a minor. People who are unaware or far removed from this experience can be judgmental and not understand that the individual themselves have to engage in the process of getting help no matter how hard family and friends try.”
West himself referred to his diagnosed bipolar disorder in numerous tracks, while the cover of his 2018 album ye features the jokey words: “I hate being Bi-Polar it’s awesome”.
West said: “A lot of what was sending me into those episodes … the constant feeling of not being in control spun me out of control,” citing the breakdown of his deal with Adidas, which ended its lucrative collaboration with the musician in 2022 after he made a series of antisemitic remarks.
West said he no longer takes medication for his mental health; as autism is not an illness, it is not medicated. “I haven’t taken the medication since I found out that bipolar wasn’t the right diagnosis. It’s finding stuff that doesn’t block the creativity, obviously that’s what I bring to the world. It’s worth the ramp-up, as long as y’all get the creativity.” He said he is watchful for episodes of poor mental health. “I watch for it beforehand – but if you get to the point it goes, you’re going to stay in that position for a while. It might go for three days, four days, a week. Some people if they get into it, you’ve got to put them in a place that’s not in public.”
Elsewhere in the interview, West said that his new album Bully would be released on his daughter North West’s birthday, 15 June. He said he has reconciled with Mike Dean, the producer who was one of his chief creative foils and appeared on all of his studio albums until a dispute between the pair meant Dean was not part of West’s two Vultures albums.
West said of Bully: “I feel like it is my Miseducation [of Lauryn Hill], my Gnarls Barkley album.”
He also said that the White Stripes were a major inspiration for a series of solo tracks, namely how Seven Nation Army would be chanted at football games. “I tried two times to do it: the first time was Black Skinhead. The second time was All Day – Paul McCartney wrote that melody [on his Wings song When the Wind Is Blowing].” West then repeated the chant motif on Carnival, his Vultures I single which topped the US chart in March 2024, making him the only rapper to have a US No 1 in three separate decades.
West also offered his thoughts on the beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake – West and Drake previously had a dispute that ran across a number of tracks and public statements: “I was like: man, [Lamar] killed my nemesis!” West compared Drake to a superhero who “just goes away for a couple of films”, but said that it was only “for now … Drake added something to the algorithm, to our frequency, he advanced us. Future advanced us, now Kendrick has advanced the frequency … if you don’t really learn as a professional rapper, as a sport, what Kendrick is doing, you might be wiped out.
“I’m the greatest that ever existed, and other people shouldn’t feel that, because I’m here … But if you’re going to rap against Kendrick, you will lose.”
West caused controversy this week after he turned up to the Grammys alongside Censori, the latter wearing a revealing sheer minidress. The outfit was seen as unnecessarily provocative by some, while others suggested it was a form of coercion by West. West himself framed it as a collaboration, writing on X: “We tailored that invisible dress 6 times and just like magic poof we disappeared”, and cited her “rightful strength”.
Asked about the couple’s appearance, Raj Kapoor, executive producer of the Grammys acknowledged that the “artistic black tie” dress code at the awards is “open to interpretation”, adding: “Obviously there is a dress code for anybody actually performing on the show that we have to adhere to standards and practices. But as far as people attending and nominees attending, that would be something the Academy would have to answer.”
