Never shy of ruffling feathers, Kanye West was booed Thursday night after he told concertgoers he would have voted for Donald Trump.
"I told you all I didn't vote right? ... But if I were to have voted, I would have voted for Trump," he said to a somewhat mixed response in San Jose, California.
"This is about the idea of a black guy liking Trump. They thought they had me because ... just because I was black or just because I was a celebrity," he added, presumably referring to the Democrats. "But Trump is our president. And that would’ve been my vote, so I feel right."
West has said he will run for president in 2020, but many assumed that — if he was actually serious — he would run as a Democrat. (Although Yeezy has declared this several times, the following tweet posted on the morning after the election is actually from a parody account.)
He met with Hillary Clinton last year and posed for a selfie taken by his wife, Kim Kardashian West. He also donated $1,000 to Barack Obama's 2012 campaign and then $15,000 to the Democratic National Committee before the last midterm elections, according to New York magazine.
During a rambling speech between songs at San Jose's SAP Center, he explained his hypothetical Trump vote didn't mean that he had compromised his views.
"[Voting for Trump] don't mean that I don't think that black lives matter, that don't mean I don't believe in women's rights, that don't mean that I don't believe in gay marriage," he said.
He also urged the audience to "stop focusing on racism" because "we're a racist f***ing country — period." He said that "not one or the other candidate was going to instantly be able to change that."
Some of the concertgoers said he stopped his show for at least 15 minutes to air his political views. Others said they walked out altogether.
