Don Lemon is firing back at Kanye West’s Grammy rant against him ... telling us he doesn’t get why the rapper had to throw a racial slur into the mix.
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00:00I was at the Grammys, I wanted to talk to people.
00:04He was nominated.
00:05He has contributed a lot to the music industry and when he came I just wanted to ask him
00:10about music.
00:11I didn't want to ask him anything controversial.
00:12I was very, you have to read the room, I was very aware of the moment.
00:15This was a fundraiser, Los Angeles has been through a lot, so I wasn't going to really
00:19ask him about all the provocative things that he had just done that weekend.
00:23So I just asked him music questions and fine, if he didn't want to talk, he didn't want
00:27to talk.
00:28He didn't have to post that stuff about me and he didn't have to call me that word.
00:32I don't like to use that word or call anyone that word and I think that can be, it may
00:40be even a worse insult among black people than the n-word.
00:43Because with the n-word, you say it a lot in rap music and it's not a hard r, but with
00:48that word among black people it has a certain connotation.
00:52Maybe it's past me, maybe he doesn't like what I've said about him before, but I've
00:55never, I think someone tried to get me to interview him when he was doing interviews
01:01a while back.
01:02But I was never interested in profiling or platforming that sort of behavior because
01:09I thought maybe, honestly, that he was having some sort of mental break in public and I
01:13wanted to save him and the viewers from that.