Kanye West threw a little tantrum on the Today show last Tuesday during an interview with Matt Lauer. As a result, his media trainer Susie Arons – who was hired on Monday – quit her job on Thursday.
West was invited onto the program to respond to comments ex-President George W. Bush had made to Matt Lauer about West calling him a racist in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
The rapper’s camp on Monday hired Susie Arons, an executive vice president at Rubenstein Communications, for help handling the interview. Collectively, they agreed West should cancel the interview, and it was called off Monday night.
On Tuesday morning Arons was informed that Kanye was at the studio at NBC’s Rockefeller Center; she rushed to the studio at his request.
According to a show insider, “West shut himself in a dressing room with Susie, and could be heard rehearsing possible questions and answers. But the interview began, and it was as though he had crammed for a test and then his mind went blank.”
West grew frustrated when a clip of him interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech during the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards was shown and said, “Yo, how am I supposed to talk if you’re going to run the thing in the middle while I’m talking?”
When Lauer and West took a break, West “huddled again with the media trainer because he still hadn’t found a way to express himself,” said our source. The disastrous interview aired Thursday, and Arons resigned from working with him yesterday morning.