Kanye West Gets Candid About His Bipolar Diagnosis, Says at One Point He Had to Be Handcuffed
Kanye West is opening up about his bipolar diagnosis.
On an upcoming episode of My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman, the rapper, 41, spoke to host Letterman about his struggle with bipolar disorder and what it’s like when he has an “episode.”
“When you’re in this state, you’re hyper-paranoid about everything,” West said during the interview. “Everyone — this is my experience, other people have different experiences — everyone now is an actor. Everything’s a conspiracy. You feel the government is putting chips in your head. You feel you’re being recorded. You feel all these things.”
“You have this moment [where] you feel everyone wants to kill you. You pretty much don’t trust anyone,” he continued.
West also described being handcuffed and separated from loved ones during treatment.
“They have this moment where they put you — they handcuff you, they drug you, they put you on the bed, and they separate you from everyone you know,” West said, according to the outlet. “That’s something that I am so happy that I experienced myself so I can start by changing that moment.”
“When you are in that state, you have to have someone you trust. It is cruel and primitive to do that,” he added.
“If you don’t take medication every day to keep you at a certain state, you have a potential to ramp up and it can take you to a point where you can even end up in the hospital. And you start acting erratic, as TMZ would put it,” West said, referencing the explosive interview he gave to TMZ in May 2018, in which he infamously suggested that slavery is “a choice.”
“When you ramp up, it expresses your personality more. You can become almost more adolescent in your expression,” West continued. “This is my specific experience that I’ve had over the past two years, because I’ve only been diagnosed for two years now.”
RELATED: Kim Kardashian Says Medication ‘Not Really an Option’ to Treat Kanye West’s Bipolar Disorder
At the end of the day, the rapper says he wants to help break the stigma around bipolar disorder.
“It’s a health issue that has a strong stigma on it and people are allowed to say anything about it and discriminate in any way,” he said. “This is like a sprained brain, like having a sprained ankle. And if someone has a sprained ankle, you’re not going to push on him more.”
“With us, once our brain gets to a point of spraining, people do everything to make it worse,” he reportedly continued. “They do everything possible. They got us to that point and they do everything to make it worse.”
RELATED: Kanye West Opens Up About Bipolar Disorder and Shares He Had First ‘Complete Blackout’ at Age 5
Following years of speculation from fans —particularly after he was hospitalized for a “psychiatric emergency” in November 2016 just after canceling his Saint Pablo tour — West seemingly confirmed that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder last summer with the release of his album Ye — which bore the phrase “I Hate Being Bipolar. It’s Awesome” on the cover.
In April, West’s wife Kim Kardashian West also confirmed his diagnosis in an interview with Vogue, saying the couple had reached a “pretty good place” with his mental health.
“It is an emotional process, for sure,” the 38-year-old reality mogul told Vogue. “Right now everything is really calm. But we can definitely feel episodes coming, and we know how to handle them.”
My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman premieres on Netflix on Friday.
