The “Karate Kid” star has a complicated history with the artist formerly known as Kanye West.

Jaden Smith abruptly walks off mid-interview after reporter mentions Ye

The "Karate Kid" star has a complicated history with the artist formerly known as Kanye West.

By Wesley Stenzel

Wesley Stenzel is a news writer at **. He began writing for EW in 2022.

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February 14, 2026 6:04 p.m. ET

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Jaden Smith in Los Angeles on Oct. 18, 2025. Credit:

Taylor Hill/FilmMagic

Jaden Smith doesn't want to talk about Ye… or footwear… or something.

The *Karate Kid* star abruptly walked away from a red carpet interview on Wednesday just seconds after a reporter mentioned the artist formerly known as Kanye West.

*Complex* journalist Jillian Hardeman-Webb invoked Ye while contextualizing Smith's collaborator Steven Smith, who previously collaborated with the "Gold Digger" rapper on his Yeezy footwear line.

"I see that you're working with Steven Smith, who designed Yeezy footwear with Ye," she said on the red carpet for Druski's screening of *Coulda Been Love *season 2. "What are y'all cooking up?"

Less than a second after Hardeman-Webb finished her question, the musician walked off, exiting the interview without saying a word.**

After several seconds passed, Hardeman-Webb turned to the camera and responded, "I guess we'll never find out."

Ye in Los Angeles on March 21, 2024.

Bellocqimages/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

** has reached out to representatives for Jaden Smith and a representative for Ye for comment.

Smith has a tumultuous history with Ye. He has frequently cited the Yeezy mogul as a primary influence for his own musical career, and made headlines when he sported a Batman costume to the "All of the Lights" rapper's 2013 wedding to Kim Kardashian.

"I wore the Batman suit to heighten my experience at the wedding and prom, which was fun, but also at the wedding I felt as though I needed to protect everyone there and needed to have the proper gear to do so," Smith told *GQ* in 2015.

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However, in 2018, Smith said he no longer hangs out with his musical idols like Ye, Donald Glover, and Drake. "I always felt like Little Homie before and that allowed me in all of their circles," he told *Complex*. "But now that I'm on the charts next to them, I'm not really Little Homie anymore."

The following year, Smith was cast to play a young version of Ye in *Omniverse*, a Showtime anthology series about an alternate-universe version of the "I Am a God" rapper that the two musicians were set to executive-produce together. The project never came to fruition.

Jaden Smith in New York City on Feb. 13, 2026.

Giovanni Giannoni/WWD via Getty

In 2022, Smith attended Yeezy's show at Paris Fashion Week, but he left the event after Ye walked out in a shirt bearing the slogan "White Lives Matter." In a series of since-deleted X posts, Smith explained that he "had to dip."

"I can't stand behind what Kanye's saying. He does not have the full support of the youth," he wrote at the time, *The Independent* reported.

In posts that remain online, Smith added, "Black Lives Matter" and, "I don't care who's it is, if I don't feel the message I'm out."

Smith was named creative director of Christian Louboutin in September. He also recently launched a nonprofit organization called I Love You that is dedicated to providing free meals and clothing to homeless people in the Skid Row neighborhood of Los Angeles.

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Ye recently issued an apology for his repeated antisemitic comments over the past few years, citing his bipolar disorder as one of the reasons for his erratic behavior.

"I said and did things I deeply regret," he wrote in a longwinded ad published in *The Wall Street Journal* in January. "Some of the people I love the most, I treated the worst. You endured fear, confusion, humiliation, and the exhaustion of trying to have someone who was, at times, unrecognizable. Looking back, I became detached from my true self."

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