Update 10.18.2022: Roxie Washington, the mother of George Floyd’s daughter Gianna Floyd, is suing Kanye “Ye” west for making “false statements about George Floyd’s death to promote his brands, and increase marketing value and revenue for himself, his business partners, and associates,” according to a press release from Witherspoon Law Group and Dixon & Dixon Attorneys at Law, obtained by Houston’s KPRC-TV. The family is reportedly seeking $250 million in damages.
KPRC also reports that Floyd’s family issued a cease-and-desist letter to West, for his comments made on the Drink Champs podcast. The interview has been removed from YouTube and Revolt TV, but clips continue to circulate on the internet and social media. “The interests of the child are [a] priority,” Attorney Nuru Witherspoon, partner at The Witherspoon Law Group, said in the press release. “George Floyd’s daughter is being traumatized by Kanye West’s comments and he’s creating an unsafe and unhealthy environment for her.”
Original: “While one cannot defame the dead, the family of [George Floyd] is considering suit for Kanye [West]‘s false statements about the manner of his death,” tweeted Lee Merritt, a civil rights lawyer and attorney for the Floyd family, on Oct. 16, following Ye’s appearance on the Drink Champs podcast. During the interview, Ye, 45, made more antisemitic comments and said that George Floyd died from a drug overdose and not from having Minneapolis Police Department Officer Derek Chauvin kneel on his neck for nine minutes. “Claiming Floyd died from fentanyl [and] not the brutality established criminally and civilly undermines & diminishes the Floyd family’s fight,” added attorney Merritt.
While one cannot defame the dead, the family of #GeorgeFloyd is considering suit for Kanye’s false statements about the manner of his death.
Claiming Floyd died from fentanyl not the brutality established criminally and civilly undermines & diminishes the Floyd family’s fight.
— Lee Merritt (@MerrittForTexas) October 16, 2022
Ye made his claims on Drink Champs after bringing up The Greatest Lie Ever Sold, the new documentary from Candace Owens (the controversial conservative commentator who was by Ye’s side during his “White Lives Matter” fashion show.) “I watched the George Floyd documentary that Candace Owens put out,” said West. “One of the things that his two roommates said was, ‘they want a tall guy like me, they want a tall guy like me,’ and the day when he died, he said a prayer for eight minutes. He said a prayer for eight minutes. They hit him with the fentanyl. If you look, the guy’s knee wasn’t even on his neck like that.”
Kanye West says George Floyd passed away because of fentanyl and that the cop’s knee “wasn’t even on his neck like that” pic.twitter.com/sVKy3VK35O
— Kurrco (@Kurrco) October 16, 2022
George Floyd died from “asphyxiation from sustained pressure” when his neck and back were compressed by Chauvin, according to the experts hired by George Floyd’s family and the Hennepin County Medical Examiner in 2022. The medical examiner said Floyd’s official cause of death was “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.”
The medical examiner said that fentanyl and methamphetamine use were among “significant conditions,” but the report didn’t state how much of either drug was in his system or how that may have contributed to his death at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department. Derek Chauvin was ultimately convicted of murder and sentenced to 22.5 years in prison. In Dec. 2021, he pled guilty to violating Floyd’s civil rights and was sentenced to 21 additional years in prison. Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas Lanes, the other officers involved in the Floyd killing, were also convicted of violating Floyd’s civil rights.
A day after Drink Champs (Oct. 17), Ye announced that he agreed in principle to buy the conservative social media platform Parler. The move comes after his suspension from Twitter and Instagram for making antisemitic comments. “Ye is making a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again,” George Farmer, Parlement Technologies CEO and husband of Candace Owens, said in a statement, per CNBC.