Kanye West made the claims in an appearance on the Drink Champs podcast on Saturday 15 October. The interview was removed on Monday and N.O.R.E, who is the host, has since apologised. peaking about George Floyd, Kanye West claimed that he died due to a fentanyl overdose. “I watched the George Floyd documentary that Candace Owens put out. One of the things that his two roommates said was they want a tall guy like me, and the day that he died, he said a prayer for eight minutes. “They hit him with the fentanyl. If you look, the guy’s knee wasn’t even on his neck like that,” the artist claimed.

On 29 May 2020, white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of Floyd’s murder. This is after he knelt on Floyd’s neck for almost ten minutes on 25 May while the unarmed black man was handcuffed and lying face down on the street, crying “I can’t breathe”. On 20 April 2021, a jury found Chauvin guilty of second-degree and third-degree murder, as well as second-degree manslaughter. He was later sentenced to 22 and a half years in prison. George Floyd’s murder in 2020 immediately reignited the “Black Lives Matter” protests and campaigns, which Kanye West claimed earlier this month are a “scam”. The rapper said this in response to the outrage about his “White Lives Matter” Yeezy Season 9 runway show at the Paris Fashion Week on 3 October.

According to civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, who has represented the Floyd family, it was Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, who alerted him about Kanye West’s remarks. Taking to Twitter on Sunday, Merritt wrote: “While one cannot defame the dead, the family of #GeorgeFloyd is considering suit for Kanye’s false statements about the manner of his death. “Claiming Floyd died from fentanyl not the brutality established criminally and civilly undermines diminishes the Floyd family’s fight.” Merritt also told CNN that although the family cannot sue Kanye West for defamation of character, they can sue for other things such as intentional infliction of emotional distress. “I have put together a working team to investigate [West’s] statements and to investigate the source of those statements,” Merritt said.