The rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, is opening up about his split from Kim Kardashian West, saying he wishes they were still together.
“'SNL' making my wife say ‘I divorced him’ on TV because they just wanted to get that bar off ... And I ain't never even seen the papers, we’re not even divorced,” he said during a recent episode of the “Drink Champs” podcast.
Ye, whose legal name change from Kanye West was approved earlier this month, was referring to Kardashian West’s joke about him when she hosted “Saturday Night Live” last month.
“I married the best rapper of all time,” she said during her opening monologue. “Not only that, he’s the richest Black man in America. A talented, legit genius who gave me four incredible kids. So when I divorced him, you have to know it came down to just one thing: his personality.”
“That ain’t no joke to me,” Ye, 44, said during his recent interview. “My kids want their parents to stay together. I want us to be together. But if you look at the media, that’s not what they’re promoting.”
Kardashian West, 41, filed for divorce from Ye in February after more than six years of marriage. Earlier this year, she and Ye each filed paperwork requesting joint custody of their four children: North, 8, Saint, 5, Chicago, 3, and Psalm, 2.
In the months leading up to their divorce announcement, reports had emerged of difficulties in their relationship, with a source close to the family confirming to TODAY in January that they had been living apart and were undergoing marriage counseling.
Last year, Ye made headlines with a series of erratic tweets and public statements.
“Kim was trying to fly to Wyoming with a doctor to lock me up like on the movie Get Out because I cried about saving my daughter's life yesterday,” he wrote in one since-deleted tweet last year.
Kardashian West later spoke out about her then-husband’s behavior, asking for compassion and understanding.
"As many of you know, Kanye has bi-polar disorder," she wrote in an Instagram story in July 2020. "Anyone who has this or a loved one in their life who does, knows how incredibly complicated and painful it is to understand.
"I understand Kanye is subject to criticism because he is a public figure and his actions at times can cause strong opinions and emotions," she wrote in a later part of her message. "He is a brilliant but complicated person who on top of the pressures of being an artist and a black man, who experienced the painful loss of his mother, and has to deal with the pressure and isolation that is heightened by his bi-polar disorder."
She continued, "Those who are close with Kanye know his heart and understand his words some times do not align with his intentions.”