Kyrie Irving gets support from "Ye" amid antisemitism controversy

Kanye West posted black and white head shots of Irving and ESPN's Stephen A Smith and referred to them as "real ones."

Kyrie Irving lamented the media calling him out for promoting an anti-semitic documentary on social media. Now, he is getting backed by the face of anti-semitism in pop culture: Kanye West.

In a series of social media posts, West, who legally changed his name to Ye, posted black and white head shots of Irving and ESPN's Stephen A Smith and referred to them as “real ones.”

Kanye West considers Stephen A. Smith and Kyrie Irving ‘real ones’ pic.twitter.com/a58ca1Qe9L

— NBACentral (@TheNBACentral) October 30, 2022

“It’s actually some real ones still alive that ain’t afraid no more I’m with you Time to build our own So the #redmedia can never control or diminish us again,” Ye wrote as the caption for the Smith photo.

Ye captioned Irving's photo with, “there's some real ones still here.”

Irving came under scrutiny this past week when he posted a link to the documentary, “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America” to his Twitter page. The documentary contains anti-semitic content and backlashed followed immediately. Ye has also dealt with his share of public scorn in recent weeks when his anti-semitic messaging on his Twitter and Instagram pages led to him losing over $1 billion.

Irving didn't back down when questioned by the media about the post, which remained on his Twitter page days after the public decried him using his platform to elevate anti-semitic material.

“I'm not here to argue over a person or a culture or a religion and what they believe,” Irving said after the Nets 125-116 loss to the Indiana Pacers on Oct. 29. “Nah, this is what's here. It's on a public platform. Did I do anything illegal? Did I hurt anybody? Did I harm anybody? Am I going out and saying that I hate one specific group of people? So out of all of the judgment that people got for me posting, without talking to me, and then I respect what Joe [Tsai] said, but there has a lot to do with not ego or pride of how proud I am to be [of] African heritage, but also to be living as a free Black man here in America, knowing the historical complexities for me to get here.