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Last week, Kanye West announced on Instagram that he'd "lost 2 billion dollars in one day," but the disgraced rapper's fans are now pitching in to help rebuild his fortune.
West, who's legally changed his name to Ye, has made headline after headline in recent weeks over a litany of antisemitic and anti-Black comments. He angered many after he appeared at his Yeezy fashion show in Paris on October 3 wearing a shirt that proclaimed "White Lives Matter."
Jewish organizations and anti-hate groups have also condemned West for saying that he planned to go "death con 3 on Jewish people."
In whiplash-inducing speed, one business after the next has cut ties with the rapper, including Adidas and the luxury fashion house Balenciaga.
Forbes reported last week that West was no longer on its list of billionaires and has a new estimated worth of $400 million.
Despite the series of West-centered controversies, the rapper's fans appear ready to help him at all costs.
On Monday, media outlets reported that West-lovers had launched GoFundMe campaigns to pad the rapper's pockets. One of the main fundraisers, titled "Make Kanye West a billionaire again," had attracted some $5 before being removed from GoFundMe's platform, according to the hip-hop news website AllHipHop.
Even still, other West-related fundraisers are displayed on GoFundMe's website. One titled "Help Kany [sic] West Be a Billionaire Again" had not yet raised any money in the 10 hours after its launch.
Some who have taken note of the effort to enrichen Ye apparently think that they're more worthy of the aid. "Don't make Kanye West a billionare [sic], make me one!" reads one such GoFundMe campaign. Another person titled their fundraiser "Make me (not Kayne West) billionaire again" and posted a picture of a brown-haired man posing with a brown dog.
Someone else started a campaign called "Make Me Richer Than Kanye West.." and included a YouTube video of them asking for funding. Another page was titled "Make a random Swede a billionaire not Kanye West" and featured a photo of a blond man with tattoos seated on a tiny bicycle.
Fans of West's have tried to organize crowdsourcing efforts for the rapper before. Back in 2016, a GoFundMe page was created with the goal of raising $53 million to help get the rapper out of debt.
However, West reportedly declined the thousands of dollars generated by that campaign, so the dough instead went to a music-related nonprofit organization called Notes for Notes.
Newsweek has reached out to GoFundMe and representatives for West for comment.
About the writer
Simone Carter is a Newsweek reporter based in Texas. Her focus is covering all things in national news. Simone joined ... Read more