Jason Lee Talks Parting Ways With Ye, Debuting Rihanna's Baby Pics and New Show

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What’s been the best Jason Lee Show interview so far? 

A few of them have been my favorite. Let me start with the Cardi B interview. Cardi doesn’t just do interviews where you ask anything you want. We talk every day, and we talk about every single thing. What I love about the Cardi B interview is she had a publicist named Vanessa Anderson. Vanessa reps Issa Rae, Karrueche, DJ Mustard, and a few people. Cardi B was clearly her biggest star. And so when Cardi called me, she was really excited about me getting the Revolt show and that’s what makes Cardi special. She cares about me as a person.

We don’t sit around and gossip. When The Wendy Williams Show producers wanted me to host the show but then said I wasn’t big enough to host, she was more upset about it than I was because Cardi was going to come on the show. So she told me, “Ask me anything you want.” And directly after our call, her publicist sends me the longest note, which I can’t talk about. If I read it here right now, y’all would gag.

But it was the longest message. One of the things I will tell you is [she said] I can’t ask her anything rap-related. Why the hell I’m going to interview Cardi B and I can’t ask about anything rap-related? So I responded and said, “This is the most ridiculous shit I’ve ever seen. Don’t ever text me like that. I ask whatever I want to ask.” And Cardi didn’t even tell me what I couldn’t ask her. And that’s the thing. 

That narrative of being that messy blogger makes people think, “He’s going to be messy.” I get a call from Cardi’s manager, shout out to Shawn Holiday, he says, “We know you’re going to look out and do this properly. We’re not even on that. It’s good vibes. Let’s just have a great interview.” She came. She looked amazing. And she did the interview. And during the interview, Vanessa’s employees were in the room, and they interjected while I asked a question. I said, “Oh, no. That’s it. Don’t you ever interrupt me on my set, on my show.” And Cardi said, “It’s okay Jason, continue.”

That to me was a powerful moment. Cardi sat there for, what they told me would only be a 15-minute interview, for two hours. We talked about everything and it’s currently the highest-watched episode right now. I take my hat off to Cardi because she did it in a non-album cycle, she did it without having to do it. She had nothing to promote, she literally did it to support a friend. 

Vanessa Anderson, who’s a Black woman, is someone I called when she started working with Cardi to tell her, “Hey, this is my friend, these are her triggers, here’s how you make sure she’s involved with the process.” I set Vanessa up for success, the whole time she was gatekeeping Issa Rae from Hollywood Unlocked. She was trying to shut down my Cardi B interview, but this is the world that I sit in. Now if I address it, I’m messy. If I don’t address it, nobody knows about the mess that I’m living in. So, Cardi was one of my important ones, for sure. 

Blueface and Chrisean were great. I mean, who else can sit through two and a half hours with that dog running around, them consuming as much liquor as they can, [Chrisean] jumping over the couch, and him smoking blunts? I mean, it was a circus, but it also sharpened my skills and ability to interview people. And then, the NLE Choppa interview. He’s 20 years old, smart as hell. He reminds me of Nipsey the way he communicates about the world that he lives in or that he’s growing up in and the responsibility of using his platform and just watching his evolution. So they’ve all been great. And I’m just excited to keep diversifying content. 

So let’s talk about working with Kanye. What was it like landing the role as his head of media? That was a very interesting time for Ye.

The day I opened Hollywood Unlocked Studios, I was sitting in the kitchen saying, “How will we rent this space out?” “How do we tell people we have a studio for creators to come and create?” The phone rang and it was Wack 100, and he said, “Hey, man, when are you opening that studio? I got somebody who wants to rent it. Hold on.” He hands the phone to Kanye. Ye told me he has some cousins that want to rent the space for a podcast. He then says, “When can you go to dinner?” I said, “Whenever you want.” He said, “Meet me at Craig’s in an hour.”

I go to Craig’s, sit down, and have dinner for about four hours, we’re just talking. I’m listening to new music, and he’s telling me about how he fell out with the culture. We talked about the red hat a little bit, very briefly, but I’m listening to him talk about his affection to be desired by the culture again. I was able to see him as a human. I’ve been to Sunday Service a few times and been to his house with Cardi and the Kardashians, so I was familiar with him, but not this intimate. I’ve been trying to get to him for a while because I started seeing not only his influence on culture but all the different things that were happening and the reaction from the culture. I wanted to unpack it, and so we had that four-hour conversation. 

The next day Floyd Mayweather and Evan Ross came to the studio to check it out. Kanye called and asked if I wanted to go to dinner. So we went to dinner with Madonna, Antonio Brown, Floyd, me, Evan, and Julia Fox and, you know, we’re sitting there having this moment, and they want to take photos. I told my friend: “Film this, this is some weird shit.” This is everybody that’s been canceled, this is a moment, so we filmed it, I put it on social media and it went crazy. Kanye saw the reaction, and the distribution of it, and he was amazed at how broad it went.

That same night, he got in a fight with paparazzi, I’ll say “allegedly” because I’m not the police. The next day, he called me saying, “Man, I wasn’t really aware of your influence like I am now, I got into a situation last night, and I want some advice.” I’m like “OK, I’m at my studio.” Ye pulls up with this statement from a publicist written out: “Kanye is going to Wyoming to get away from the paparazzi.” I said, “Bro, stop running away. I mean, what the hell is in Wyoming? Like, you just need to own your shit. Go out there and talk about it. Tell us what happened. But don’t talk as Kanye, talk as a Black man who’s frustrated that his baby mama took his kids away.” So we decided to do an interview. Kanye set up the chairs, he moved trees out of the way, you know he’s going to be in control of what it looks like. I had no preparation, no notes because I didn’t know we were going to do it. 

We set up the interview and we just had a conversation. Actually, he tried to change my shoes, too. But anyway, we did the interview. We took our time editing it, making sure that the integrity of why we wanted to do the conversation was there, and then we put it out, and that thing went everywhere, it was crazy. I think it did 4 billion media impressions in 24 hours. Ye was able to see the response from social media, he told me there would be a billion dollars coming in to create the Donda World, and he had this idea of how to create change in agriculture and architecture.

So if you’re going to get this billion dollars, you’re going to buy all these media properties, and you want me to help you streamline that and create an ecosystem of Black media properties owned by a Black man, led by a Black man; and if you can sit me with brands like Adidas and GAP to talk about their lack of contribution to culture and the $3 billion you’re making at Adidas and no money going into marketing, or no money going into programming for Black kids and communities who are wearing your shoes. If you put me at those tables to have those conversations as an advocate for Black Journalists, and Black storytelling, I will do it. We made the deal and I signed up as his Head of Media. 

The first conversation was with the president of Yeezy Gap and the vice presidents over at Adidas. I asked, “How much money are you giving to the Black community?” The fumbling of the answers was just alarming because there was no money going back into the community. When they put out Yeezys, the Hypebeast is so crazy. The support from Complex has been so amazing that you don’t really need a lot of marketing because people are right there to consume it.

If you’re able to make $3 billion from a man that looks like me, you should at least earmark five percent to go back to the community. Once we started those conversations, it got really uncomfortable. Ye got to a point where he was fed up. And instead of being strategic and moving the way we talked about, he just put them on blast. Sometimes, when you’re not strategic there are consequences, we’ve seen that play out. So yeah, it was an interesting time. 

I wasn’t behind the Pete [Davidson] stuff. I didn’t believe in spending that much inventory on Pete because we’re driving culture, and Pete is not a part of the culture. If your baby mama wants to let this man have your kids sit on his lap, I understand the outrage. I understand when this man is tattooing your children’s names on his body or sending you pictures of him laying in your wife’s bed before you finalize your divorce.

I understand the gaslighting, and I understand that the Kardashians have such a stronghold on mainstream media that they can try to bury you; it was just some weird shit. So I understand the outrage and the frustration. But what I didn’t understand was why Kanye lost track of the strategy behind getting people to understand it and open up their hearts to empathize with him. And because he couldn’t respect the leaders he put around him, look at what happened.

When did you realize you needed to step away and stop working with Kanye?

Well, he told me he was going to run for president, and at that time I had access to his Twitter. And he said, “When I asked you for my Twitter password, I’m going to announce my run for president.” So the day he asked for the password to Twitter, I sent over my resignation letter. I come from a background of being involved with politics and I don’t play around with that. We had a conversation through his people and he said, “You know, I respect Jason if he wants to step away, I support that.” And so I said, “Thank you,” and I left, no negativity or anything.

Everything was great until he posted the picture with Candace Owens. I personally felt the impact of that because I partnered with Trayvon Martin’s family. When Trayvon Martin was killed, I walked in the streets during Black Lives Matter. I protested the George Floyd killing. So when I saw that he wanted to run for president, and I saw that he was standing next to Candace Owens, who I believe is just the most cancerous, disgusting, vile pig of a person, I was like, “Yuck.”

And then the white lives matter shirt, we know white lives matter. Black lives matter is not about saying white lives don’t matter, it’s about saying we want Black lives to matter, too. When I saw that, I was so disappointed. Then he got into it with the editor from Vogue and attacked her boots and her looks. So I just stepped away. But I stepped away with love because I still have text conversations with him, he’s told me how much he cares about me. I want the best for him. I want him to be able to have his children when he wants to. I want him to be able to find peace of mind.

I want him to be able to be loved again by the culture. But I also want to see him take responsibility. What he said about the Jewish community was almost embarrassing because we’re asking one community to politic their pain over ours; slavery was real, it wasn’t a choice. And the Holocaust was a real thing that caused a lot of pain. Why are we debating each other’s pain or experience for public consumption instead of finding a way to build bridges? 

When the paparazzi took pictures of Rihanna’s baby, how did she and Rocky decide to give them to you?

I love Rihanna and Rocky. I was in Dubai, I happened to come home from partying. It was about 6 a.m. and I was getting ready to get in bed. I got a FaceTime call from Rihanna. I answered the phone. She said, “I’m doing a photo shoot right now and I think the paparazzi got photos of my kid, this is not the way I wanted my baby to be revealed. I talked to Rocky, and we were gonna give you the pregnancy photos. But we got caught up in the reveal and forgot. So I want to give you the photos of my kid.” I got goosebumps because I understood how big this would be. This is a self-made billionaire global icon, who can give those photos to anybody.

She can put them on her Instagram, she can do whatever she wants, she’s Rihanna. But the fact that in the midst of all of that she thought about me. Sometimes I’m in my feelings about how nobody sees me or nobody understands me. I felt it validated the conversations I’ve been having about Black owned media being important. It validated my frustrations with how oftentimes we are not given the proper credit for what we do. So I felt really excited and honored about that. I also felt it was a win for Black media. Because she said, “If somebody is going to put it out, I want our people to benefit from that.” She stayed true to her word of supporting me. 

When do you decide to take something down? I know this has happened to you, you created content with a celebrity, and then after it was over, for whatever reason, they called you like, “Don’t air that.” How do you handle that?

Well, nobody calls me and says, “Take it down.” If you do that, I’m keeping it up. I’ll even use Vanessa as an example. All the stuff she put in the Cardi B interview notes, I didn’t even think about it. I was like, “Oh, damn, I forgot about that.” I wasn’t even thinking about it because I want everybody I interview to look great. Yeah, we have to ask one or two or three hard questions people want to know. But the rest of that time is your time to shine. Right? And I want you to shine because we shine together. 

Now, I will say Blac Chyna. Recently, after doing the show, her mother has been on a nonstop rant about her, and my team posted it because it’s what’s happening online. Blac Chyna messaged Hollywood Unlocked asking if they can please stop posting her mom. She didn’t say it to me. She didn’t text me directly. She DMed the platform. I respect that she was addressing my journalists, bloggers, writers, contributors, and critics and asking them to not post it and she was polite about it. And when I looked at what we were posting, I’m like, at this point, Tokyo Toni is only being posted when she’s attacking her daughter and her daughter is at a place of peace now. And are we contributing to chaos by posting this nonsensical bullshit from her mom? So I tell my team to stop posting. It’s just not necessary. 

Now, I love Latto. I had an interview with her and I genuinely connected with her. She’s the first rapper to put me in a song. I respect her experience as a biracial woman in America. One day she did a video where people could see 21 Savage’s name behind her ear. My team put it up. I started getting random calls from numbers telling me to take it down. I thought it was a fake fan playing around on my phone. So I sent the number to my team and they said, “Oh, this is her publicist...”

I guess we were the first to post it, but then everybody else posted it. So now it’s out. We can’t take it down because people will say, “She made the call and he took it down.” So I said, “No, we gotta keep it up.” They called back and asked if they could pay to take it down. Now, I don’t know that Latto asked that, but I’m like, “You think you can actually give me a check to tear away at my credibility for you?” I was a little taken aback by that. So we ended up not taking it down. 

I’ve texted her a few times. She hasn’t responded to me. So I don’t know if she was mad at me. I don’t know if we lost Latto, but we need Latto like Latto needs us. We want her to be successful. We still post things about her. I don’t know if it’s because 21 Savage was allegedly married because he wants to be in the country. I don’t know the politics of that because we don’t talk about that. But I love Latto and I want her to put me in another love song, “Latto Loves Jason.” Probably not gonna happen, but we love Latto anyway.

What’s next for the show? Let’s run down all the guests that you’ve had on so far. 

We’ve had Cardi B, Blueface and Chrisean. We had Blac Chyna. We had Laverne Cox, NLE Choppa. We had Claudia Jordan and Luenell, which is one of the most hilarious episodes; you have to watch that interview. Remy Ma and HitMan Holla, we’ve had a lot of amazing people on the show. DaBaby called me, he’s coming on the show. I’ve been wanting to talk to him as a gay man who supports him, and who believes he’s important to the culture and important to hip-hop and who wants to see him continue to be on the top. Will Smith invited me to see Emancipation and to go support his film when he was canceled. His people were talking about him coming on my show, but he didn’t pull up. But that’s what happens. Whatever, Will you’re still invited.

The vice president is supposed to be coming on the show, I want to put that out there. We’ve been building with the White House and talking with her about her coming on the show. She said she was coming. And we’ll see if that’s a commitment that she keeps. I’m excited. Moneybagg [Yo] has been invited. Chloe Bailey is setting up her interview. So many people are gravitating to the show and showing support. And everybody’s welcome. Even the people who think I don’t like them. You are welcome; I’ve told 6ix9ine to pull up, everybody’s invited, pull up.

So what’s next for Jason Lee? What can we expect in the next 10 years?

10 years? Retired. Absolutely. I have no more than seven years left. My exit is seven years max. And then, I want to be completely 1,000 percent unapologetically out of the game. I want to be focused on philanthropy, giving back to my community, and maybe building schools, doing things that matter. I want to get out because I see so many people letting this industry destroy them, destroying their confidence, relationships, integrity, and mood. I want to be done. I want to be on a boat somewhere living my life. 

Early on in my years, I’ve gone through so many complicated things, watching my brother die, getting shot, being able to discover my sexuality, mother on drugs, my mother passing, a broken family, and being abandoned in foster care. God gave me all that to help people to understand how to make it on the other side of it. He gave me a platform to build influence and communicate with the world. So understanding now, through this journey, the importance of storytelling and the obligation to be responsible for your voice, right? Once you exit and you have hundreds of millions of dollars like Rich [Antonelli] from Complex and maybe sit somewhere and advise. I would do that, but to be in it and all that? No, not in 10 years. I’m not going to die on a talk show. I will have every conversation I can, and I want to be out of the game in seven years, max. Hold me to that.