Kanye West has spoken about breaking his addiction to porn, saying that “with God, I’ve been able to beat things that had a full control of me”.
The rapper was speaking to Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s Beats 1 in Wyoming for a new interview ahead of the imminent release of his new album, ‘Jesus Is King’. The record was meant to arrive at midnight, but West tweeted earlier this morning to tell fans that he and his team were still working on three songs.
Among the subjects covered by West in the interview was an acknowledgement of his “full-on pornography addiction”, which the rapper says he is now overcoming thanks to his belief in God.
“Playboy was a gateway to a full-on pornography addiction,” West said. “My dad had a Playboy left out at age 5. It has affected every choice I have made for the rest of my life from age 5 to now, where I’m having to kick the habit. And it just presents itself in the open, like it’s OK. And I stand up and say: it’s not OK.”
“With God, I’ve been able to beat things that had a full control of me,” he continued later on in the interview. “You know that Playboy that I found when I was 5 was written all over the moment when I was at the MTV Awards with the Timberlands, the Balmain jeans — before people was rocking Balmain jeans — and the Hennessy bottle.
“It’s like that was such a script out of a rock star’s life,” West said in reference to that episode at the 2009 VMAs where he infamously stormed the stage during Taylor Swift‘s acceptance speech. “My mom had passed a year before, and I said: ‘Someone people drown themselves in drugs, and I drown myself in my addiction: sex.'”
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West also said that while working on ‘Jesus Is King’ he asked his colleagues to fast and abstain from having pre-marital sex.
“This is gonna be radical what I’m about to say we can look at it in the edit [of the interview],” he said. “There were times I was asking people to not have premarital sex while they were working on the album. I know that’s one where The Shade Room [will say]: ‘What you mean not have premarital sex!? You’d better turn Megan Thee Stallion on right now!’
“But seriously, there’s times I went to people that were working on other projects and said, ‘Could you just work and focus on this?’ I mean, it’s known when people pray together, families that pray together stay together. When people pray together and fast together, the power is increased.”
Elsewhere in the Beats 1 interview, West reflected on his surprise Sunday Service performance at Coachella.
“God was using me and it lined up amazing, like, literally the Sunday was Easter Sunday,” he said of the special morning show he performed with his gospel choir and band.