Kanye West has sensationally claimed that he was involved in an incestuous relationship with a male cousin throughout his childhood. While promoting his new track titled COUSINS on X, West stated that the two would “act out” scenes they had seen in adult magazines.
He also released a preview of the song, accompanied by blurred and suggestive visuals. In the track, the rapper references discovering pornographic magazines in his late mother’s closet, which he says partly inspired the song. West explained that the song reflects on his early experiences with his cousin.
But who is the cousin in question? He claimed in the tweet which has been viewed by 4.4 million people: “This song is called COUSINS about my cousin that’s locked in jail for life for killing a pregnant lady a few years after I told him we wouldn’t “look at dirty magazines together” anymore.
“Perhaps in my self centered mess I felt it was my fault that I showed him those dirty magazines when he was 6 and then we acted out what we saw.
“My dad had playboy magazines but the magazines I found in the top of my moms closet were different My name is Ye and I sucked my cousins d**k till I was 14 Tweet sent.”
West sings on the track, “Hanging with my cousin reading dirty magazines / We seen some n—as kiss, and we ain’t know what that s–t mean / Then we start re-enacting everything that we had seen / That’s when I gave my cousin head.”
The Grammy winner repeats that line several times before confessing that he “told [his] cousin not to tell nobody.” He continues, “People tell me take it to my grave: ‘Truth will set you free someday.’ I don’t think they understand that I’m not attracted to a man.”
West has never publicly identified the cousin he referenced in his new song. However, he did mention a cousin during a 2018 interview with Jimmy Kimmel, saying: “My cousin is locked up for murder and I love him. So he did a bad thing, but I still love him.”
This same cousin was later brought up by Kanye’s ex wife, Kim Kardashian, in her 2020 documentary, Kim Kardashian West: The Justice Project. At the time, she shared limited details, stating that Kanye’s cousin had been convicted of murder at the age of 17.
In a conversation with Marc Howard, president of the Frederick Douglass Project for Justice and director of Georgetown University’s Prisons and Justice Initiative, Kim explained that the cousin is serving a double life sentence for the crime.
Fans have been scouring the internet in search of the cousin’s identity – but to no avail. One user posted on Reddit: “Just researched for like two hours trying to figure out who this cousin is. No mention of his name at all. A double life sentence at 17 is insane, there should be some type of article or court documents talking about this but I can find none.”
However, no one seemed to know any more information. One fan said: “He has like a hundred cousins it’s almost impossible to know,” while another added: “Does it matter? Leave it be. He’s letting go of years worth of trauma and being completely truthful. Why try to dig deeper into something he’s already being 100% honest about. The situation is the situation, doesn’t matter who the cousin is.”
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