“The Breakfast Club” radio host Charlamagne Tha God pulled out of the New York Times sponsored event featuring rapper Kanye West that was scheduled to take place on Oct. 17.
The Times Talk event was centered around mental health in the Black community, but Charlamagne announced on Monday via Instagram the affair was canceled because “it would have been “a total distraction.”
The “Breakfast Club” personality and West have both been extremely vocal about their struggles with mental health. However, Charlamagne felt that with everything going on with the rapper, the conversation with Yeezy would have taken away the significance of mental health issues.
“Normalizing being mentally healthy is a conversation that I really wanted to have with Kanye because he’s been so vocal about his own mental health struggles,” Charlamagne wrote. “Unfortunately I think to have that conversation with him right now would not be productive and a total distraction from the point of the convo which is to eradicate the stigma of mental health especially in the Black community.”
The cancellation of the event follows after West’s meeting with President Trump last week. During the rapper’s visit, he spoke about being wrongly diagnosed with bipolar disorder and claimed he was really sleep deprived.
“I wasn’t actually bipolar. I had sleep deprivation which can cause dementia 10 to 20 years from now when I wouldn’t even remember my son’s name,” West noted.
Charlamagne has been an advocate for mental awareness in the Black community and urged Black men to “invest in a therapist.”
“I think Black men especially should go to therapy and seek out mental help because we need it,” the radio personality wrote.
Charlamagne conducted an interview in April with West about the rapper’s hospitalization. The two bonded over their mental health struggles, but both stars have expressed different political views.
“Kanye West does not represent all Black people,” Charlamagne told MSNBC. “I’m Black and I don’t support Donald Trump in any way, shape or form.”
