Culture
Kanye West Connected His Bipolar Diagnosis to a Brain Injury and Apologized for Past Actions
Kanye West Apologizes in WSJ Ad, Links Past Outbursts to 2002 Car Crash and Mental Health
Kanye West in an advertisement on a full page in The Wall Street Journal on Monday apologized publicly to everyone for his “psychotic, unreasonable and impulsive”-type behavior and also claimed that the mental health issues of his car accident in 2002 were to blame for the outbursts.
“Twenty-five years ago I had a car accident that caused my jaw to be broken and also hurt the right frontal lobe of my brain,” he explained, noting that at the time, people mostly focused on the visible injuries—“the fracture, the bruising and the immediate physical trauma”—whereas “the deeper injury…was overlooked.”
West referred to the statements he made in 2023, when he declared, “I’m not bipolar. I have symptoms of autism caused by my car accident,” but he seems to have come around to the bipolar diagnosis which that time he doubted.
He goes on to say that denial is a part of the illness. “Bipolar disorder has a built-in mechanism of defense. Denial,” he notes. “During a wild episode, you won’t recognize that you are ill. You will think that everyone else is exaggerating…when in fact, you are completely losing control.”
Kanye West Says He “Lost Touch With Reality,” Expresses Regret for Harm Caused During Bipolar Episodes
On his bipolar disorder Kanye West said that it can feel very “persuasive” and that it had changed his judgment and distorted the awareness of himself.
“You feel powerful, certain, unstoppable,” he wrote. “The idea that you might need help is almost impossible to accept.” He then straightforwardly admitted, “I lost touch with reality.”
West remarked that he had ignored his mental health for too long and that his behavior had deteriorated even more as a result. “I say and do things that I deeply regret. The earth shakes beneath our feet. Some of the people I love the most, I treated the worst,” he wrote. “Things got worse the longer I ignored the problem,”
West took the blame for the suffering he caused those closest to him. “You endured fear, confusion, humiliation, and the exhaustion of trying to have someone who was, at times, unrecognizable,” he wrote. “Looking back, I became detached from my true self.”
Kanye West also expressed regret to several groups as part of his apology. At the time, he was in such a “fractured state” that he “gravitated toward the most destructive symbol I could find, the swastika, and even sold T‑shirts bearing it,” he said.
Kanye West Apologizes to the Black Community and Jewish People, Insists He Was Only Misremembering Due to Bipolar Disorder
Kanye West, in his Twitter statement, admitted that his bipolar type-1 diagnosis entails “disconnected moments” that he “cannot recall,” however, he didn’t want to make this an excuse for his behavior.
“I regret and am deeply mortified by my actions in that state, and am committed to accountability, treatment, and meaningful change,” he wrote. “It does not excuse what I did though.”
Among the very first things West did after being released from the hospital was deny that his comments were hateful or that he was a Nazi supporter. “I’m neither a Nazi nor an antisemite. I love Jewish people,” he said in one statement.
Alongside this, he apologized separately to the Black community whom he saw as the source of his being and identity. “To the black community – which held me down through all of the highs and lows and the darkest of times,” he wrote. “The black community is, undoubtedly, the very core of my being. I’m sorry for disappointing you. I love us.”
Kanye West Reflects on 2025 Controversy After His Antisemitic Rants Led to Industry Backlash
Kanye West issuing an apology and revealing his struggles with mental health were things that happened only after the rapper was heavily criticized and rejected by his fans and the industry. In Feb 2025, after a series of extremely offensive social media rants on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) where he even mocked domestic violence and praised Adolf Hitler, the rapper was cut off from the whole industry immediately.
Throughout the rant, he kept demanding Diddy to be released from jail and also said things like “IM A NAZI” and “I LOVE HITLER,” confirming later: “Hitler was sooooo fresh.” Additionally, he released a statement saying: “I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT THE F*** ANTI SEMETIC MEANS.”
The public had been outraged at West for antisemitic statements once in 2022, when those comments were regarded as “hateful” and “inexcusable.” He was even dropped by major brands such as Gap and Adidas after those antisemitic comments.
