Kanye West just ruined any good will he had.
This week, Pete Davidson, the boyfriend of West’s estranged wife, Kim Kardashian, convinced his pal to leak a series of text messages that the SNL star had exchanged with West. In the messages, Davidson praised Kardashian’s devotion to her and West’s children and told West to “grow the fuck up” before sending him a selfie and saying he was “in bed with your wife.” The texts were posted by Dave Sirus, a former SNL writer and best pal of Davidson’s who co-wrote Davidson’s film King of Staten Island—and then subsequently deleted.
It wasn’t a good look for Davidson, who appeared to be childishly taunting West with the “in bed with your wife” comment. Up until that point, the comic had taken the high road and ignored West’s repeated attacks at both Kardashian and himself, including a number of memes and a disturbing animated music video in which he removed Davidson’s head from his body.
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In the early hours Wednesday morning, West fired back at Davidson in a pair of Instagram posts. First, he posted a screengrab of a headline to an article posted on Breitbart—the preferred outlet of the alt-right—that read, “PETE DAVIDSON ENGAGES AUDIENCE WITH JOKES ABOUT HAVING SEX WITH A BABY.” The Breitbart post aggregated another piece from the Montreal Gazette about how, during a stand-up set at the Bell House in Brooklyn—one that this writer attended—Davidson made a crude joke about enjoying a friend’s baby sucking his thumb, before quipping, “I don’t want to fuck this baby, but he’s asking for it.”
It was clearly an off-color joke (again, I was at the gig), and Breitbart misinterpreted the punchline, as is their wont. Still, West proceeded to caption the post with a rambling screed about how “SKETE”—his Trump-like nickname for Davidson—“gotta stay away from my children.”
Then, he followed it up with another post claiming, “Im really concerned that SKETE will get my kids mom hooked on drugs He’s in rehab every 2 months.” (There is no evidence at present to support this.)
Reminder: Kanye West is a 44-year-old multi-billionaire.
On Tuesday night, The Daily Show host Trevor Noah weighed in on the back-and-forths, lamenting, “As a society, we have to ask ourselves questions. Do we wish to stand by and watch a car crash when we thought we saw it coming? Or do we at least want to say, ‘Slow down, let’s all put our hazards on, because there’s a storm coming and shit might go down.’”
He concluded: “If Kim Kardashian cannot escape this, then what chance do normal women have?”
