Kanye West owned up to his recent mistakes in an extremely honest Instagram video titled "Thanksgiving Prayer."
Within the five minute voiceover, he acknowledged he'd "embarrassed" his wife Kim Kardashian and addressed his failed presidential bid, his alcoholism, his "self-righteous" religious behavior and more.
Ye posted the video on his Instagram late on Thanksgiving and simply included the caption "Thanksgiving Prayer" followed by the dove emoji.
The video shows a choir, wearing black hoodies, singing in a warehouse while his speech is heard over the top of it.
Here the full transcript of everything Ye said in his Instagram video:
"Boom, boom, boom. Westside.
Kanye West. Conway West Side. You never noticed that, did you?
The uh. Hello, my name is Ye.
And this is my super, super, super super super long Thanksgiving Prayer.
On this Thanksgiving. I'm so thankful for family, my blood family, my fans and our haters. We love you too.
On Thanksgiving on Christmas morning, not the night before or the day just the morning.
We're thankful for our current civilization of 8 billion people, our ancestors and our children.
I'm writing this prayer on my way back from taking my Mini Me to his first football game.
Saint got to play catch with Tom Brady before the game. This is a God's dream.
My Mini Me is a mix of two of my favorite things. Me and my wife's face.
All I think about every day is how I get my family back together and how I heal the pain that I've caused.
I take accountability for my actions. New word alert: Misactions.
The one thing that all my successes and failures have in common is me.
Let's start with A, alcohol.
I would drink to take the stress away and knock the edge off. Drinking affected my health and the health of people around, around me because I already had a hair trigger temper and this just heightened it.
B, episodes. I went into a manic episode in 2016 and I was placed under heavy medication. Since then I went on and off the medication which left me susceptible to other episodes, which my wife and family and fans have had to endure.
Ego. My ego has a tendency to go past the threshold of being motivating and entertaining to just being overbearing, there are ways to show confidence without arrogance.
Temper. Now I know, none of y'all would ever picture this but sometimes I scream. And that screaming might have helped me tell off everyone who doubted me in music but that screaming did not help me keep my family together.
Religion. Self-righteous Christian behavior. When I got saved it did not immediately make me a better person. It made me a self righteous Christian. Mix that with being rich, famous and very, very, very, very, very attractive and you got a Molotov cocktail ready to be thrown through the window of anyone who ever disagreed with me. I was arrogant with my Jesus. Like I just got me some Jesus at the Gucci store with a stimulus check.
Let's go with politics here. Good Lord my wife did not like me wearing the red hat. Being a good wife she just wanted to protect me and our family. I made me and our family at target by not aligning with Hollywood's political stance and that was hard for our marriage. Then I ran for president without proper preparation and no allies on either side. I embarrassed my wife in the way that I presented information about our family during the one, and thank God, only press conference.
All my dad had to say afterwards was 'write your speech next time son.'
F is for finances. I spent money like crazy. I mean it's the craziest thing I've done, and I've done like crazy things. As the priest of my home, I must watch my own money and secure our finances. This is America. So people don't consider stealing to be stealing, they just chalked it up to greed, consumerism and capitalism.
I've let people use me. I've had giant entourages. People around me just to make me feel good about myself. I've had to learn that I have to take accountability.
We always judge and tell other people what they should do, but we can only take accountability for ourselves and our children.
This Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for the family that my wife has given me.
I'm thankful for the life that God has given me.
And I'm thankful for your time, attention and patience. In Jesus name. Amen."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Jamie Burton is a Newsweek Senior TV and Film Reporter (Interviews) based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on ... Read more
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