Kanye West has abruptly shut down Donda Academy. And now, the school’s students must scramble to find a new place to enroll and continue their education in the middle of the year.
On Wednesday night, according to The Times, school officials at the California-based private academy sent out a hurried email to parents of all students. In the message, the staffers explained the school is to be shut down for the remainder of the school year, “effective immediately,” and that was that.
OMG!!!
Of course, this comes amid the ongoing fallout from Ye’s string of disappointing and disgusting antisemitic comments. The Hurricane rapper has already been dropped by brands like Gap, Adidas, and Balenciaga. A fully-filmed documentary about him has been shelved. Athletes signed to Donda Sports are dropping the agency left and right. And now, the school named after his late mother is no more.
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The email to parents on Wednesday evening was signed by Jason Angell, the private Christian school’s principal. It started out like this (below):
“Dear Donda Academy Families — we hope this email finds you well. First we would like to express our gratitude for the community of families and scholars that Donda Academy brought together. However, at the direction of our Founder, Donda Academy will close for the remainder of the 2022-2023 school year effective immediately. Thursday, October 27th. THERE IS NO SCHOOL TOMORROW.”
Wow. Just… wow. So that’s that, then?
At this point, it is unclear whether parents will receive tuition reimbursements considering the school didn’t make it through a full year. Angell reportedly gave no indication about potential tuition paybacks in the email, per The Times.
However, he did claim school staffers would be “diligently” assisting families in helping students move to other schools around Los Angeles in the coming days:
“Our leadership team will be working diligently to assist all families during this transition, ensuring that every scholar has what they need to succeed in their next community.”
We hope they do that. These students are being left completely hung out to dry in the middle of the school year. And their parents got less than 24 hours notice that the school would be closing! WTF?!
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Ye returned to Instagram early Thursday morning following the Donda Academy email reveal, too. In a new post, he singled out Hollywood Unlocked‘s Jason Lee, who had been serving as the rapper’s director of media partnerships until he resigned earlier this month following Ye’s “White Lives Matter” stunt at Paris Fashion Week. The Jesus Walks performer-slash-fashion designer wrote:
“JASON LEE, Here’s the clout you’re looking for. My school is being shut down. You wanna help or hurt.”
Oof.
As AllHipHop notes, that post was “swiftly deleted.”
In its place, the Yeezy brand head put up a poem (seemingly to agent Ari Emmanuel — CEO of WME) reflecting on how he “lost 2 billion dollars in one day / and I’m still alive.” The 45-year-old star termed the verse a “love speech,” and referenced his net worth fluctuations by adding “the money is not who I am.” Ye was recently dropped by CAA, so is this his latest plea to get a new rep? More likely it was response to Ari penning a piece for the Financial Times, arguing that the rapper’s mental illness does not excuse his behavior.
You can see it (below):
OK…
His abrupt return to IG in the overnight hours into Thursday morning caught lots of attention from his fans. But now, even Ye’s most die-hard social media supporters are reflecting on his s**t show of a month.
To wit, one user, who has had Kanye’s back in the comments section, wrote:
Yeah, “a rough week” is definitely one way to put it. Reactions, Perezcious readers? Share ’em down in the comments (below).
[Image via MEGA/WENN]