Add Kanye West to the list of celebrities who say they’ve had coronavirus.
In a new interview with Forbes magazine in which he discusses his purported plan to run for president, West revealed that he contracted COVID-19 in February.
“Chills, shaking in the bed, taking hot showers, looking at videos telling me what I’m supposed to do to get over it,” West said in describing the symptoms he had before striking a lighter, more competitive note about having the virus. “I remember someone had told me Drake had the coronavirus and my response was Drake can’t be sicker than me!”
West did not describe what steps he took to recover from the disease, but he adamantly rejected any notion that the rush to find a vaccine to combat COVID-19 is the answer. “It’s so many of our children that are being vaccinated and paralyzed… So when they say the way we’re going to fix Covid is with a vaccine, I’m extremely cautious,” he said, going on to spin his unproven conspiracy theory about alleged tracking devices hidden in vaccines.
“That’s the mark of the beast. They want to put chips inside of us, they want to do all kinds of things, to make it where we can’t cross the gates of heaven. I’m sorry when I say they, the humans that have the Devil inside them. And the sad thing is that, the saddest thing is that we all won’t make it to heaven, that there’ll be some of us that do not make it.”
While railing against potential vaccines against the novel coronavirus, West also said his cure for the global pandemic that has killed more than 544,000 and infected nearly 12 million is simple: prayer. “We pray. We pray for the freedom,” West said. “It’s all about God. We need to stop doing things that make God mad.” A spokesperson for West had not returned requests for comment about the rapper’s illness at press time.
West joins a growing list of artists who’ve spoken out about having coronavirus, including P!nk, Madonna, Sturgill Simpson, Babyface, Sara Bareilles, YNW Melly, Joe Diffie, Sam Smith, Slim Thug, Placido Domingo and many others.