Jamie Lee Curtis Urges People to ‘Stand Up’ Against Kanye West’s Antisemitism

On a recent episode of The Jess Cagle Show on SiriusXM Stars (Ch. 109), co-hosts Jess Cagle and Julia Cunningham asked Jamie Lee Curtis to further share her feelings about Kanye West‘s recent anti-semitic tweet. The actress had already spoken about the topic on TODAY and her own social media.

“These people say terrible things a lot,” Cagle pointed out, referring to both West and Ricky Gervais, “And I feel like as an industry, people just let it slide. And I’m so glad you spoke out.”

Recalling the moment she read the tweet, Curtis told Cagle she and her hairdresser were in New York City and both held each other in tears. “‘DEFCON 3 on Jewish people.’ That’s been done before. It’s called the Holocaust,” she pointed out. “And by the way, I’ve seen the doc [jeen-yuhs, 2022]. He was — you know, his early hustle and stuff, it’s fantastic. But you can’t say that.”

Curtis blamed social media for a society that accepts behavior like West’s. “We all, we are inured to it,” she explained.” We have these devices in our hands, and we are looking at tragedies. We’re watching the war in Ukraine. We’re waking up to images of people, you know, on the streets of Ukraine who have survived these rocket attacks. And then we’re watching duck memes.”

She ended with a reminder: “It’s a lesson. It’s just a lesson … We gotta stand up to it. If we can’t stand up to it, we’re in trouble.”

Other celebrities who have come out publicly against West’s tweet include comedian Sarah Silverman, journalist Maria Shriver and musician Jack Antonoff. Twitter has since removed the offending tweet for violating Twitter Rules.