Many celebrities across pop culture threw their hat into the Kanye ring this year. Whether it was for his controversial views, his brand deals, or his (technically) released music, people have spoken up. Particularly, Shaq voiced his criticism of Kanye via an Instagram comment, calling out "his dumb a**." He responded to Kanye's condemnation of Balenciaga's recent controversy involving child models.
Ye called out celebrities for not "cancelling" Balenciaga after people accused them of sexualizing children in advertisements. Like many others, the Chicago rapper is accusing "the culture" of double standards, as they condemned him and Kyrie Irving for other controversies. "All celebrities are controlled," he stated.
Shaq threw some shots at the Yeezy designer, whether controlled or not. He commented on a The Shade Room post reporting on Kanye's comments, and pointed out some hypocrisy.
"The same brand that dropped his dumb a**," he commented, adding the hashtags "narcissist" and "hypocrite."
Unsurprisingly, a lot of people drew lines on this issue. On one hand, some in the comments pointed out that Kanye still wears Balenciaga. "Kanye was dripped in Balenciaga head to toe today," one user noted. "We supposed to think he really cares about this…he just wants brownie points." Another user also highlighted Kanye's propensity to promo with Balenciaga despite his issues with the brand.
"Shaq is right, Ye is only calling them out cause they dropped him," they said. "He was 'all in the videos' just last month. It’s only bad when he no longer in it."
However, a lot of people also criticized Shaq for missing the point. By speaking on Kanye's comments and not on Balenciaga's actions, many feel like he's contributing to the issue. "Not Kanye proving his point though," a commenter wrote. "Celebrities saying everything but the right thing."
What's more is that many of Shaq's critics aren't excusing Ye, either. "Well correct they did drop him, but they also sexualized children Shaq. It’s possible for 2 things to be right at once," read one comment. Another highlighted the media's uneven response to these issues.
"Kanye didn’t lie tho, they were out of line for that ad, and it barely made its way into pop culture news. That’s sick, it wasn’t an accident, it was wrong. I feel like that was hella hypocritical. Not excusing anyones behavior but y’all did the most for Ye and Kyrie and they barely got a repost."
You can check out more responses to Shaq's dig at Kanye West below.