On Monday (October 17), N.O.R.E. apologized for his role in the latest Drink Champs episode that featured Kanye West making offensive and factless comments unchecked about George Floyd’s death. During the interview, Ye made incorrect remarks about the 46-year-old’s cause of death. Civil rights attorney Lee Merritt, after witnessing the comments, announced that Floyd’s family is considering a lawsuit against Ye over “false statements about the manner of his death.”
Floyd died as a result of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on his neck for nearly 10 minutes. The rapper, based on nothing, asserted that Floyd was under the influence of fentanyl. During a call-in appearance on Monday’s episode of The Breakfast Club, N.O.R.E. apologized to Floyd’s family, noting that Drink Champs will employ editing in the future. “I just wanna be honest, I support freedom of speech,” the Drink Champs co-host said. “I support anybody, you know, not being censored. But I do not support anybody being hurt. I did not realize that the George Floyd statements on my show was so hurtful. And you gotta realize, it was the first five minutes of the show. When he walked in, he told my producer, he said that if he’ll stop filming, he’ll walk out.” Additionally, N.O.R.E. said he didn’t want to have a “Birdman moment” and claimed he “checked” Ye on his comments later in the episode, although he conceded he was “already inebriated” by that point and that it was too little too late. “I apologize to the George Floyd family,” he said. “I apologize to anybody that was hurt by Kanye West’s comments.”