Kanye West Hits Back Over Wheelchair Gaffe in Epic Rant

Kanye West has hit back at those who made a big deal of his stopping a concert in Sydney.

At last week’s Sydney show, he castigated two audience members for not standing up and dancing, not realizing that one was wheelchair-bound and the other had a prosthetic limb.

In a disjointed rant on Monday night that knocked everyone from Ben Affleck to Matt Lauer to Whoopi Goldberg, West lashed out at the media for criticizing his behavior, the Daily Beast reports.

The riposte was delivered during his concert in Brisbane, where West is bringing his Australian tour to a close.

“It’s like, ‘Welcome to today’s news, ladies and gentlemen.’ We’ve got Americans getting killed on TV, kids getting killed every weekend in Chicago, unarmed people being killed by police officers,” said West to the Brisbane crowd.

“It makes you just want to reflect on what are the things that are, uh, a little bit more sensationalized.”

Those sensationalized things, he implied, included a big-name rapper mistakenly harassing two disabled concertgoers.

The rest of his address went on in rambling West fashion, with the artist claiming that his music transcended mere news.

“This is real expression. This is real artistry. You know, an artist’s career doesn’t happen in one cycle of news — an artist’s career happens in a lifetime,” he said. “And if you’re a true artist, you’re willing to die for what you believe in,” he continued.

The superstar said he could have tweeted or put out a statement about the wheelchair nonscandal, but chose instead “talk directly” to the audience and “break this s- -t down for real, intelligent people.”

A partial video of the five-minute rant is available on TMZ.

Write to Elizabeth Barber at elizabeth.barber@timeasia.com.