Michael Che Claims Kanye West Apologized to Him ‘Years Later’ for SNL Rant
NEED TO KNOW
- Michael Che reveals Kanye West apologized to him for a misunderstanding the two had when the rapper visited Saturday Night Live in 2018
- Following the release of Ye’s In Whose Name? documentary, an argument between the Grammy winner and the comedian has gone viral
- “I don’t really like talking about it,” Che said during a Thursday, Sept. 25 SiriusXM interview
Michael Che says Kanye West apologized to him for a rant that led to a confrontation during one of the rapper’s guest visits to Saturday Night Live.
The “Weekend Update” coanchor, 42, appeared on the Thursday, Sept. 25 episode of SiriusXM’s The Bonfire where he opened up about a 2018 misunderstanding he had with the 24-time Grammy winner, 48, even though Che admitted it’s not something he likes to discuss.
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However, since the Sept. 19 release of West’s In Whose Name? documentary, footage of their argument has gone viral.
While speaking with Big Jay Oakerson and Robert Kelly for the radio interview, Che said he realized earlier in the evening that West was “not behaving like himself” based on the fact that “he’d been at the show a million times.”
It wasn’t until after the “Heartless” rapper went on stage and delivered a last-minute rant that Che felt slighted.
Will Heath/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty
“You can’t always have, every time you have a Black subject matter like [Bill] Cosby that you have to have a Black comedian talking about him,” West told the audience.
Motioning to Che, he said, “You know what I mean?”
Once fully off-stage, Che confronted the SNL guest in the hallway, saying, “I’m the Black comedian that made a joke about Cosby. That’s f—ed up. Why’d you do that to me?”
With cameras rolling and eyes watching, rapper Consequence, who had been standing behind Che, asked the comedian to cool down and “reconvene in a second.”
“Was that the last time you talked to him or you talked to him since?” Kelly asked Che in Thursday’s episode.
“No, actually. And that’s another reason why I don’t really like talking about it,” Che said. “Because the next time I saw him was years later, I remember. It was the Eddie Murphy show, and every Black person in Hollywood was at this show. Like, literally. It was crazy. It was people that had never came to SNL.”
In Whose Name?
The legendary comedian and SNL alum, 64, was hosting the sketch comedy’s Christmas episode, which brought out droves of celebrity fans, Che said.
“I had a lot in that show and I was running around crazy and people were just in my dressing room kind of using it as their green room,” he continued of how busy the night was, adding that he “had no place to really go.”
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“And I’m walking through the hallway and [Kanye’s] coming out the elevator bay and as soon as he sees me, he goes, ‘I owe you an apology,’” Che said.
He continued, “And I hadn’t seen him in years. I didn’t even know if he remembered that that happened because he was saying so much. And he was like, ‘I owe you an apology.’ And we talked and I was like, I never brought it up again.”
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