Exploring Ye’s brief working relationship with Jason Lee of Hollywood Unlocked
Once upon a time on @theonlyjasonlee’s Instagram, a photo captioned “About Last Night” broke the internet. The artsy black and white photos posted showed Jason Lee with a bunch of A-list celebrities you’d never expect to see in the same room together: Madonna, Julia Fox, Antonio Brown, Floyd Mayweather, Evan Ross and Ye fka Kanye West. Most call this time period “January” but those tuned into Ye’s dating journey call it “The Julia Fox era,” the simpler times before Ye’s notorious posting sprees. Two months after this outing, artist, billionaire and fashion designer Ye appointed Hollywood Unlocked Founder Jason Lee, to be the head of his media partnerships. Little did anyone know, Ye’s social media account was about to quite literally pop off, leading Ye to become the media’s biggest villain of 2022. But what role did Lee play in all this?
Jason Lee, who’s no stranger to having celebrity friends, closely linked with Madonna, Rihanna and Tiffany Haddish, enjoyed Ye’s company during their “Wednesday night out” and invited Ye to speak on his podcast. Lee met Ye through Wack 100.
The very next day, Lee and Ye sat down together at Hollywood Unlocked Studios for an exclusive 45 minute interview titled “EXCLUSIVE: Jason Lee Talks to Kanye West About Controlling His Own Narrative.” Ye, cozied up in an oversized Balenciaga denim jacket, speaks freely with Lee about many topics: his recent divorce with Kim Kardashian, security stopping him from seeing his kids, abortions in America, being a black fashion designer and wanting to control his narrative in the media.
“This world is broken. You don’t have to be afraid of change. I’m an empath. I want the best things for everybody,” Ye told Lee.
During this podcast, Ye spent a lot of time speaking about how the black voice is still very much enslaved in America and has been since the 1980s, a similar sentiment he’s been preaching in recent podcasts and televised interviews.
“Our fathers have been strategically being taken out of the homes. Drugs been strategically put there to gaslight us and have us attacking each other.”
Lee complimented Ye for sitting down with him even though he could have chosen a larger media outlet, “This exchange, you here, this is black media, this is black excellence.” He continued singing Ye’s praises, “Everything you’ve touched creatively is excellent. You’ve put a lot of people on. You’ve fed a lot of people’s families. You’ve made a lot of people millionaires, billionaires. You are the culture.”
“The Future Brunch”
Cut to February 6th, Ye and Jason Lee teamed up to host the “The Future Brunch, bringing 50 black journalists from multiple publications together to discuss disparities in Black media and reclaim the narrative. Ye spoke about the importance of investing in Black media and empowering Black leaders.
Lee expressed gratitude on Instagram, sending Ye “massive love” for the opportunity.
For the rest of February and early March, Ye began his wild posting spree, posting and then quickly deleting a bunch of Instagram posts calling out a wide range of celebrities and media outlets. These posts had a short shelf life, sometimes only alive on the timeline for 30 seconds or less. It was one of the first times in history where a celebrity as big as Ye was releasing unfiltered thoughts daily for all the world to see.
But then on March 11th, it was announced that Ye had appointed Jason Lee as head of his media partnerships. Fans wondered what this meant for the future of Ye’s social media accounts. Would Jason start posting for Ye or would Ye continue running his own account?
The answer to that question was answered a few days later when Ye went on another posting spree responding to Comedian Trevor Noah who went on The Daily Show to tell his audience he’s concerned Ye is harassing Kim Kardashian. Ye went straight to Instagram to reply by posting a photo of Noah and calling him a racial slur. Ye was then suspended from Instagram.
That was the last people heard from Ye for a few months. Ye waited three months before returning back to the gram after the suspension. During this time, he flew to Japan and was spotted with his new girlfriend Chaney Jones.
For months, anytime someone wondered if what the media was reporting about Ye was true, fans would comment, “unless you hear it from Jason Lee, don’t believe it.”
Lee continued carrying on business as usual posting articles relating to both Ye and the Kardashians. On a few occasions Hollywood Unlocked broke a Ye story first or debunked stories put out by other outlets. But unless you knew about their working relationship, the partnership was not obvious to the public. It didn’t appear that Lee was doing much for Ye but fans gave him the benefit of the doubt thinking it was possible they were conjuring up bigger plans together behind the scenes.
On June 9th, Jason Lee posted a video of someone sending him a box of Yeezys but didn’t disclose who sent the box. At the end of the video, Lee tosses the shoes back into the box which made fans question his standing with Ye. One commenter told Lee to “Find Gratefulness.”
One fan tagged Jason on the post and asked him, “bro we need to know are you team YE or team Kardashians?” Another commenter replied, “Jason is only Team Jason.” Jason liked that comment.
In mid September, Jason went live on YouTube and announced that he is no longer working with Ye.
Lee makes a statement to his audience:
“I no longer work with Kanye West. So let me be very clear, that term has termed out. I’m no longer working with Kanye West. I am no longer responsible for anything Kanye says or does. I’m no longer a part of that camp. I am still friends with Kanye. His last message sent to me was, ‘Tell Jason I love him, I respect him but I can’t call him because he’s going to tell me to do what I don’t want to do.’ Because I’m going to always tell people to do what’s right. I’m not going to tell people what they want to hear. Kanye had publicly said that I was not a yes man and he said he respected me because I wasn’t a yes man. I love the fact that Kanye gave me the opportunity to consult with him on the landscape of media. We are still friends. Um, my term just ran out and I decided to move on. I wish him and his team all the best. He’s definitely a culture shifter and has a lot going on.”
On October 15th, During the since-deleted Drink Champs Podcast, N.O.R.E. asks Ye if Jason is still running his media partnerships:
“Is it true that Jason Media was running Ye media and now he’s not? Is that true,” N.O.R.E asked.
Ye responded with, “Yeah he’s not running it. I just felt like, people just walking in with too much Balenciaga, you know what I’m saying. They just out here like flexing. They just flexing ya know what I mean? And I don’t like somebody saying, ‘Well imma be the voice of Ye.’ Ye the only voice of Ye. Ye the only manager of Ye.”
Ye also mentions how his money started going missing as well.
“I look at every single bill I pay. I only look at bills on a Friday and I look at every one one by one by one. I was thinking getting to be a billionaire would take me out of having to do work. Now one of my biggest jobs is keeping my money. Because there’s a lot of people on a full time job to take my money. I’ve literally lost 100s of millions of dollars by not looking close enough.
On October 3rd, prior to Ye’s appearance on Drink Champs, Jason Lee condemned Ye on Instagram for wearing the WLM shirt and associating with Candace Owens.
“I love Ye as a person, and I support free speech. But this is gaslighting black people and empowering white supremacy. Not sure if he has any friends left to tell him but this is utterly disappointing. I’m going to exercise free speech and say, nobody black has ever said that white lives don’t matter. But when black people do this it just screams the need for white validation. Not to mention, adding Candace Owens to this photo is beyond reprehensible. I understand he believes in her right to free speech, but her hate speech is typically embedded in self hate, a determination to promote white supremacy, and she lacks integrity. This is sad.”
On October 4, Page 6 reported that “Jason Lee Quits Working with Kanye West amid White Lives Matter shirt scandal,” despite Jason already announcing their term had ended mid September weeks before Ye wore the WLM shirt.
Blogger and Media Personality Armon Wiggins who worked with Lee recently went on YouTube and debunked this news story, telling his audience that Ye let Jason go because he was doing “nothing” and still charging him.
“You wasn’t doing shit. But you needed money for this and that. You were making a bunch of deals but it was unnecessary. You was sending invoices over for nothing and he was paying them out and let you go.” He also calls out Page 6 for running the WLM story and said “we know that’s a lie.”
On October 26th, Hollywood Unlocked was the first outlet to report that Donda Academy was closing its doors and ran the article as a “HU Exclusive.”
Ye hopped back on social media October 26th and addressed Jason Lee, but deleted the post in less than 5 minutes. Ye’s post reads, “JASON LEE HERE’S THE CLOUT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR MY SCHOOL IS BEING SHUT DOWN YOU WANNA HELP OR HURT” Hollywood Unlocked failed to report this story.
