Kanye West premiered his video for “Famous” at the Forum in Inglewood, California and live streamed it on Tidal on Friday. The public and star-studded event was packed with fans and celebs alike dancing to some of Kanye’s new music after watching his NSFW video. The visual for Yeezy’s infamous track showed a large white bed with nude wax figures of celebrities. The figures were all people Yeezy has been connected to, both directly or indirectly, including Ray-J (his wife’s ex), Anna Wintour (Editor-In-Chief of American Vogue), Bill Cosby, Rihanna, Chris Brown, and Amber Rose to name a few. The camera grazes over the naked bodies as Kanye raps about what it means to be famous. Taylor Swift was one of the nude wax figures featured, which didn’t go over well with her celebrity friends.
Actress Lena Dunham from the HBO series Girls, wrote a lengthy Facebook post on her reaction to seeing her best friend, Taylor reduced to a “pair of waxy breasts”:
“Let’s break it down: at the same time Brock Turner is getting off with a light tap for raping an unconscious woman and photographing her breasts for a group chat… As assaults are Periscoped across the web and girls commit suicide after being exposed in ways they never imagined… While Bill Cosby’s crimes are still being uncovered and understood as traumas for the women he assaulted but also massive bruises to our national consciousness… Now I have to see the prone, unconscious, waxy bodies of famous women, twisted like they’ve been drugged and chucked aside at a rager? It gives me such a sickening sense of dis-ease.
I know that there’s a hipper or cooler reaction to have than the one I’m currently having. But guess what? I don’t have a hip cool reaction, because seeing a woman I love like Taylor Swift (fuck that one hurt to look at, I couldn’t look), a woman I admire like Rihanna or Anna, reduced to a pair of waxy breasts made by some special effects guy in the Valley, it makes me feel sad and unsafe and worried for the teenage girls who watch this and may not understand that grainy roving camera as the stuff of snuff films.
Here’s the thing, Kanye: you’re cool. Make a statement on fame and privacy and the Illuminati or whatever is on your mind! But I can’t watch it, don’t want to watch it, if it feels informed and inspired by the aspects of our culture that make women feel unsafe even in their own beds, in their own bodies.”
Take a look at the video and footage from inside the premiere viewing on the NEXT PAGES: