On his latest late-night appearance, Quentin Tarantino set the record straight about Kanye West‘s claims that the idea for the 2012 film “Django Unchained” originated with him. Short answer: West had no part in the film’s concept whatsoever, although he once brainstormed an idea for a music video where played a slave.
READ MORE: Kanye West Claims Jamie Foxx & Quentin Tarantino Stole His Idea For ‘Django Unchained’
Variety reports that on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” last night, Tarantino provided an answer to West’s comments about ‘Django Unchained.’ West claims that he pitched an idea similar to Tarantino’s film to Jamie Foxx in 2005 when the pair brainstormed ideas for a music video for West’s song “Gold Digger.” After host Jimmy Kimmel asked Tarantino about the matter, the director quickly dismissed West’s claims. “There’s no truth to the idea that Kanye West came up with the idea of ‘Django’ and then he told that to me, and I go, ‘Hey, wow, that’s a really great idea. Let me take Kanye’s idea and make ‘Django Unchained’ out of it.’ That didn’t happen.”
But Tarantino went on to describe how West may believe his story. “I’d had the idea for “Django” for a while before I ever met Kanye. He wanted to do a giant movie version of “The College Dropout” [Ye’s debut studio album] the way he did the album – so he wanted to get big directors to do different tracks from the album and then release it as this giant movie – not video, nothing as crass as videos, it was movies, movies based on each of the different tracks,” Tarantino continued. “We used it as an excuse to meet each other and so we met each other; we had a really good time. And he did have an idea for a video. I do think it was for the “Gold Digger” video, that he would be a slave. And the whole thing was the slave narrative where he’s a slave and he’s singing “Gold Digger.” And it was very funny. It was a really, really funny idea.”
Kimmel then interjected, “It was a funny slave video, I mean…” Tarantino responded, “It was meant to be ironic. And it’s like a huge musical. I mean, like no expenses spared with him in this slave rag outfit, doing everything. And then that was also part of the pushback on it. But I wish he had done it. It sounded really cool. Anyway, that’s what he’s referring to.”
So, to the surprise of no one, Kanye West in fact had nothing to do with the creative origins of “Django Unchained.” West, who legally changed his name to Ye in 2021, is currently in hot water for recent antisemitic remarks. The rapper reportedly lost $2 billion in one day earlier this week after being dropped by several major partnerships, including Adidas, CAA, MRC, and Balenciaga. Meanwhile, Tarantino’s first book of film criticism, “Cinema Speculations,” releases on November 1, from Harper.
