Kanye West makes his first presidential campaign appearance in North Charleston, South Carolina. Photo / AP
Kanye West makes his first presidential campaign appearance in North Charleston, South Carolina. Photo / AP
An interview with Kanye West from two years ago has resurfaced, adding to serious concerns for the wellbeing of the award-winning rapper.
Sitting down with entertainment news website TMZ in 2018, West spoke about plans for his next studio album, in an appearance that was erratic and rambling.
In it, he also made the alarming revelation that doctors had prescribed him "three pills a day" for bipolar disorder but claimed that they interfered with his creativity.
As a result, West said that instead of the recommended dosage, he was only taking one or two a week – a decision that could have severe consequences.
Suddenly ceasing psychiatric medication or not taking it in accordance with medical direction is extremely dangerous.
Speaking about his manic periods in a 2019 interview with David Letterman for his Netflix series My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, he described it as feeling "hyper-paranoid about everything".
"This is my experience – other people have different experiences — everyone now is an actor. Everything's a conspiracy. You feel the government is putting chips in your head. You feel you're being recorded. You feel all these things.
"You have this moment you feel everyone wants to kill you. You pretty much don't trust anyone."
Kanye West took to Twitter in a rant that had fans concerned. Photo / AP
In recent weeks, West has spoken about vaccination preventing people from getting into heaven and vowed to lobby for the removal of "chemicals" from deodorant and toothpaste that make it hard for people to serve God.
In that 2019 Netflix interview, West seemed to confirm that he still wasn't regularly taking his prescribed medication.
"If you don't take medication every day to keep you at a certain state, you have a potential to ramp up and it can take you to a point where you can even end up in the hospital," he said.
"And you start acting erratic, as TMZ would put it ... (but) when you ramp up, it expresses your personality more."
He added that being "ramped up" gives him "a heightened connection with the universe".
His increasingly bizarre behaviour over recent weeks reached boiling point at the weekend when he held a rally in the state of South Carolina to confirm his bid to run for president.
Much of his address to the crowd was incoherent and he began to sob when speaking about abortion, claiming he and wife Kim Kardashian had considered terminating her first pregnancy.
"In the Bible it says thou shalt not kill," West told the crowd.
"I remember that my girlfriend called me screaming and crying. And I'm just thinking – and at that time I was a rapper, I was out there, I had different girlfriends and everything. And I was like, I want to word this in a way that – hey I don't give a f***.
"So my girlfriend called me and I just thought to myself, 'Please don't tell me I gave Kim Kardashian AIDS.
"She said she was pregnant, and for one month, and two months, and three months, we talked about her not having this child. She had the pills in her hand. When you take the pills, and if you take it, the baby's gone.
Kanye West tweeted that his wife Kim Kardashian tried to have him "locked up". Photo / AP
"I was sitting up in Paris, and I had my leather pants on. I'm in the apartment where my wife was actually robbed, and I had my laptop up, and I got all my creative ideas – I got my shoes, I got my next album cover, I got all this – and the screen went black and white. And God said, 'If you f*** with my vision, I'm going to f*** with yours.'
"And I called my wife and she said, 'We're gonna have this baby.' I said, 'We're gonna have this child. I know people that are 50 years old that didn't have children, that have never been able to experience the level of joy that I experienced having a child."
Loved ones were left "extremely concerned" after the rally, TMZ reported.
West took to Twitter today and in a torrent of posts, said his wife was trying to have him admitted to a treatment facility.
He indicated that he is currently on his own at a "ranch" and publicly pleaded with Kardashian and her mother, Kris Jenner, to phone him.
He also spoke of not wanting his daughters to ever pose for the magazine Playboy, said the television network NBC was responsible for Bill Cosby being jailed, and said the film Get Out was based on his life.
West has spoken at various points about his mental health, with speculation that he was diagnosed with bipolar some time in 2016.
It was the year that his concert tour was cancelled after he was hospitalised for what was described as a "psychiatric episode".
Since announcing via Twitter that he would run for president in the upcoming election, unease has grown about his current mental state.
A few days later, an interview with Forbes magazine was released about his newly minted status as a billionaire, in which he spoke about his bid.
He distanced himself from President Donald Trump, who until very recently enjoyed his staunch support, spoke out against abortion and vaccination, and claimed to have had Covid-19.
Of the coronavirus pandemic, he said: "It's all about God. We need to stop doing things that make God mad."
We love you @kanyewest ! We could never understand what it’s like to be in your shoes. Not one single person on this earth could. Just know we are here and support you. You are never alone 💯
West's weekend rally and today's Twitter rants have friends and family convinced he's in the middle of an acute bipolar episode that has "impacted his decision-making", TMZ quotes sources as saying.
His family and friends are "worried", the website added.
Concerned fans are now pleading with social media users to stop sharing memes and jokes about West's unravelling, and instead encourage him to seek help.
