- The Washington Times - Monday, September 15, 2014

Kanye West gave an onstage rant against the media during a concert in Brisbane, Australia after it was reported that the rapper harassed two handicapped fans who didn’t stand for him.

Mr. West shocked his audience Friday night during a concert in Sydney when he reportedly stopped his performance and singled out a woman with a prosthetic leg and a man in a wheelchair for not standing.

“I can’t do this show until everybody stand up. Unless you got a handicap pass and you get special parking and [expletive],” he said, according to several eyewitnesses, The Daily Mail reported.

During his concert in Brisbane on Monday, Mr. West specifically called out Matt Lauer, “because I heard this story’s gonna hit the ’Today’ show tomorrow.”

The rapper called the story a lie and accused the NBC host and those like him of “trying to demonize people,” Mediaite reported.

“If I didn’t have this last concert, maybe I would’ve tweeted something or put out a statement with a publicist, but I can talk directly to you—my fans,” Mr. West told the audience. “Because they’ve got this thing where they want the masses — people who’ve never heard my albums — to somehow read a headline that reads negative, and think that I’m a bad person or something.”

“I’m not judging, I’m just going to tell you who I am,” he continues in the nearly six-minute rant. “I’m a married Christian man with a family. At my concerts, I make sure everybody has as good a time as possible. So all this demonizing me, it ain’t going to work after a while. Pick a new target. Pick a new target. Because I’m not one of these dumba— artists that you’re used to. You come at me, I’m going to take my platform and break this [expletive] down for real, intelligent people every night.”

• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.

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