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Mike Myers Reflects On Kanye West’s George Bush Statement

Posted on May 23rd, 2014
by
Staff Editor


Kanye West’s moment during the Hurricane Katrina Relief Telethon  may have ben the start of his universal reputation for delivering “rants.” Before then, his views on society may not have been common knowledge, but they definitely were after he said “George Bush doesn’t care about black people”

Standing next to Kanye during this historic moment, caught in complete surprise which he expressed on his face, was Mike Myers. For years people have speculated on what was going through the actor’s mind and he’s now come out publicly to let us know through an interview with GQ.

What may be surprising to many is that Myers is proud to have been a part of the moment and wishes that people would focus more on the message than the surprised look on his face.

Read excerpts below and read the full story here.

“I don’t do many things. And I remember watching the television and seeing, because I’m a citizen now, my fellow citizens on the roofs of buildings dying. And I turned into my father, where my dad would shout at the TV. My dad hated injustice. I’ve been called for many, many telethons, hither and yon, and I remember just being so upset and feeling, ironically, that if this was white people on roofs, the army would be there in five seconds. And these are my fellow citizens, who just happen to be people of color, sitting on roofs for multiple days. So when they called me I said, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” I went there specifically because I wanted to help the Red Cross. I was supposed to be by myself, and I was, like, “fine”, then they said “Do you mind doing it with somebody else?” And I always remembered that Live Aid thing of “leave your egos at the door”, so I said, “Sure, of course.” And they said, “Would you do it with Kanye West?” and I said, “Uh, sure.” I actually wasn’t familiar with his work. And then he said he was going to take some liberties with the thing.

For me it isn’t about the look of embarrassment on my face, it is truly about the injustice that was happening in New Orleans. I don’t mind answering the question but the emphasis of it being that I’m the guy next to the guy who spoke a truth. I assume that George Bush does care about black people—I mean I don’t know him, I’m going to make that assumption—but I can definitively say that it appeared to me watching television that had that been white people, the government would have been there faster. And so to me that’s really the point—the look on my face is, to me, almost insulting to the true essence of what went down in New Orleans.

I’m, like, super proud to have been next to him. The look on my face is…to be honest with you, I thought I handled it well. I was like “This is what’s happening…” Because live TV is my milieu, and improv is my training, you know. It has been painful that the culture has at times meditated on my surprise, when it’s really the message, dude. The message, the message, the message, you know. There’s a world of fail culture, and it’s hardly a fail on my part to be next to the guy that spoke truth to power at a time when horrific injustices… \

 

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