Sharon Osbourne has leapt to Kanye West's defence amid the ongoing controversy over his 'White Lives Matter' T-shirt, and added that she'd quite like her $900,000 Black Lives Matter (BLM) donation back.
The manager turned TV personality, 69, defended Kanye West when she was questioned during a recent shopping trip at YSL in Beverly Hills.
Ye has landed himself in hot water of late after he wore a 'White Lives Matter' t-shirt during his show at Paris Fashion Week.
After the item of clothing was met with outrage, Kanye went on to explain why he had chosen to wear it, revealing that it was because he thought the Black Lives Matter movement was 'a scam'.
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Kanye wrote on his Instagram story: "EVERYONE KNOWS THAT BLACK LIVES MATTER WAS A SCAM. NOW IT'S OVER YOU'RE WELCOME."
Kanye has been pretty much universally slammed for the stunt, but now Sharon Osbourne has come to his defence.
When asked by TMZ what she thought about the backlash, she said: "I don't understand why white lives don't matter. I don't understand it.
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"It's not my thing, it's not my culture.
"Everybody matters, don't they?"
Saying that, she refused to either agree or disagree with the point Kanye was trying to make, saying simply: "I don't know what his point is."
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With Osbourne clearly feeling a little out of her depth when asked to weigh in on the controversy, the TMZ reporter tried to explain what all the fuss was about.
She said Kanye had branded the BLM movement a 'scam', to which Osbourne responded: "We gave $900,000 to that and I'd like my money back. Wish he could have said that before."
Osbourne was then quizzed about whether she thought Kanye should be cancelled, and said: "Don't go to his social media, don't listen to his music, leave the guy alone. Let him do what he does and if you don't like him, leave him alone."
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Kanye was never particularly clear about why he thought BLM was a scam, but it might have something to do with a lawsuit from Black Lives Matter activists last month accusing execs of pocketing $10 million in donations for themselves.
Melina Abdullah and BLM Grassroots accused Shalomyah Bowers, one of the leaders of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF), of 'siphoning' off the cash for his own personal benefit.
BLMGNF's lawyer Byron McLain described the allegations as 'completely false'.
He continued: "Either Melina Abdullah and BLM Grassroots blatantly and intentionally lied with this allegation in order to garner salacious news headlines, or they simply failed to do their due diligence before making such a wild and unfounded accusation. Either is simply unacceptable."
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UNILAD has reached out to Black Lives Matter for comment.
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Topics: Celebrity
Emma Guinness