Kanye West, who goes by Ye, caused quite the stir at Paris Fashion Week on Monday.
The rapper-turned-designer was in town to debut his newest Yeezy collection, the New York Times, CBS News, and USA Today reported.
But it wasn't his show that had everyone talking. The 45-year-old was trending online because he wore a black sweatshirt with a picture of Pope John Paul II on the front and the words “White Lives Matter” printed on the back.
Conservative pundit Candace Owens also wore the same shirt with the same lettering but in white with black letters, according to images shared online, the media outlets reported.
Complex reported that models in the show also wore the "White Lives Matter" shirts.
According to CBS News and The Times, the Anti-Defamation League has called the phrase, adopted in 2015 by white supremacist groups in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, hate speech.
The news outlets reported that the reaction to the shirt was swift, with many activists and those in the fashion industry, including New York Times director and chief fashion critic Vanessa Friedman and Garage magazine fashion director and Vogue contributing editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, condemning it.
This isn't the first time Ye has made headlines with his controversial comments.
In 2015, the Grammy winner said that "George Bush doesn't care about Black people" during a nationally televised telethon benefit for victims of Hurricane Katrina, the Chicago Tribune reported.
In 2018, he made headlines when he TMZ that slavery "sounded like a choice," CBS News and USA Today reported.
