(NewsNation) — Music artist and fashion designer Ye — formally Kanye West — has been lately making controversial statements on various platforms that have received significant backlash, including getting the Grammy-award winner banned from Twitter and Instagram.
His latest comments came this past Sunday on the “Drink Champs” podcast where, in revealing his takeaway from the Candace Owens documentary “The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM,” he said George Floyd died of fentanyl, not Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin’s knee.
“They hit (Floyd) with the fentanyl. If you look, the guy’s knee wasn’t even on his neck like that,” Ye said, speaking to hosts N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN. “They said he screamed for his mama; mama was his girlfriend. It’s in the documentary.”
While Ye’s past comments of antisemitism and white supremacy extremism may have currently just cost him socially, Floyd’s civil rights attorney, Lee Merritt, got on Twitter following the episode’s airing on Sunday to say legal matters may be pursued.
“While one cannot defame the dead, the family of #GeorgeFloyd is considering suit for Kanye’s false statements about the manner of his death,” Merritt wrote. “Claiming Floyd died from fentanyl not the brutality established criminally and civilly undermines & diminishes the Floyd family’s fight.”
Despite Ye and claims from Owens’ documentary, multiple forensic pathologists testified that it was a lack of oxygen from the way Floyd was pinned to the street by police that caused his death.
“There is no evidence to suggest he would have died that night except for the interactions with law enforcement,” Dr. Lindsey Thomas, a now-retired forensic pathologist, said while testifying in the 2021 murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Chauvin.
Thomas’ findings were also confirmed by Dr. Martin Tobin, a pulmonologist and critical care specialist at Loyola University Medical Center, who also testified during Chauvin’s trial, and an independent autopsy commissioned by Floyd’s family.
While forensic toxicologist did find 11 ng/ml of fentanyl in Floyd’s blood, it was determined the opioid had been broken down in Floyd’s body to norfentanyl, which a doctor would not expect to see in someone killed rapidly in an overdose.
In speaking to CNN, Merritt admitted defamation wouldn’t be the proper course of legal action as Floyd is deceased, but other avenues are being explored.
“I have put together a working team to investigate (West’s) statements and to investigate the source of those statements,” Merritt said to the publication Monday.
The possibility of Ye’s new legal battle and run of extremist talking points come alongside news that he is set to acquire Parler, a right-wing social media app.
Parlement Technologies, the app’s parent company, made the announcement Monday morning, stating they are “pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement in principle for Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, to acquire the Parler platform.”