Quentin Tarantino has dismissed Kanye West’s claim that he gave the director the idea for his 2012 movie Django Unchained.
During an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored earlier this month, the Stronger rapper claimed that Tarantino and his Django leading man Jamie Foxx “got the idea” for the western from him after he pitched the concept for the Gold Digger music video, which features Foxx.
Tarantino rubbished the claim during an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Thursday night.
“There’s not truth to the idea that Kanye West came up with the idea of Django and then he told that to me, and I go, ‘Hey, wow, that’s a really great idea. Let me take Kanye’s idea and make Django Unchained out of it.’ That didn’t happen,” he said. “I’d had the idea for Django for a while before I ever met Kanye.”
The Pulp Fiction filmmaker explained that he met the controversial rapper when West was trying to make movies based on different songs from his debut album The College Dropout.
“He did have an idea for a video. I do think it was for the Gold Digger video, that he would be a slave. And the whole thing was the slave narrative where he’s a slave and he’s singing Gold Digger. And it was very funny. It was a really, really funny idea,” Tarantino recalled. “It was meant to be ironic. And it’s like a huge musical. I mean, like no expenses spared, with him in this slave rag outfit, doing everything… But I wish he had done it. It sounded really cool. Anyway, that’s what he’s referring to.”
Django Unchained, which follows a freed slave as he tries to rescue his wife, starred Foxx, Christoph Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio.
The video for Gold Digger, which actually appeared on West’s second album Late Registration, was ultimately completely different, with pin-up girls and moving magazine covers appearing alongside West and Foxx.