Director Quentin Tarantino on Thursday weighed in on a claim by Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, that the filmmaker stole the idea for the Academy Award-winning film “Django Unchained” from him.
Ye, whose string of recent antisemitic remarks has sent Adidas, Gap and other corporate partners fleeing, alleged earlier this month that Tarantino swiped the idea for the movie from his concept for his “Gold Digger” music video. The rapper said he pitched the idea to Tarantino and actor Jamie Foxx, who appears on what wound up being the “Gold Digger” music video, before Tarantino turned it into a film starring Foxx.
“There’s not truth to the idea that Kanye West came up with the idea of ‘Django,‘” Tarantino told late night host Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday. “He did have an idea for a video and I do think it was for the ‘Gold Digger’ video. He would be a slave and the whole thing was the slave narrative, where he’s a slave and he’s singing ‘Gold Digger’ and it was very funny. It was a very, very funny idea.”
Tarantino said he had the “Django Unchained” movie idea “for a while, before I even met Kanye.”
Ye wanted to do “a giant movie version” of his debut album “The College Dropout” and hoped to tap “big directors” to make films for each song, Tarantino said. “That’s what he’s referring to,” he added.
Watch Tarantino address Ye’s “Django” claim starting around the 17:38 mark in the video below.