Nick Cannon spreads antisemitic conspiracy theories online
TV host references ‘Rothschild’ control and claims that Black people are ‘the true Hebrews’
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Nick Cannon
Video of TV host and actor Nick Cannon spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories and praising virulent antisemite Louis Farrakhan has resurfaced in recent days.
Cannon — who currently hosts “The Masked Singer” on Fox and previously hosted “America’s Got Talent” on NBC — spoke with Richard Griffin, aka Professor Griff, on a recent episode of “Cannon’s Class,” the TV host’s YouTube talk show. Cannon appears to have filmed the video last year, and reposted it to his channel a few weeks ago — where it gained renewed attention over the weekend.
Griffin was a member of the hip hop group Public Enemy until the late 1980s, when he was ousted over antisemitic remarks he made in a series of interviews. In the reposted video with Cannon, the TV host praised Griffin for having “the most substance and weight in speaking unapologetically… and you stuck to your guns.”
Early in the 90-minute video, Griffin said that the semitic people and the semitic languages “have absolutely nothing to do with any white people.” Cannon then chimed in: “The semitic people are black people.” Griffin and Cannon agreed that the term “antisemitic” is used to divide people and “neutralize” criticism.
In the video with Cannon, Griffin attempted to distance himself from the comments that got him fired from Public Enemy — “they put that on me… I never said these things.” In a 1989 interview with The Washington Times, Griffin said: “The Jews are wicked. And we can prove this,” and said that Jews are responsible for “the majority of wickedness that goes on across the globe.” Griffin told Cannon that during that now-infamous interview, he was merely “speaking facts” about who controls the music industry. “I’m hated now because I told the truth,” he recalled of his dismissal in 1989, repeatedly referencing “the Cohens and the Moskowitzes.”
Cannon later referenced “going as deep as the Rothschilds, centralized banking, the 13 families, the bloodlines that control everything even outside of America.” Cannon claimed that when people understand who the real Jewish people are, “it’s never hate speech, you can’t be antisemitic when we are the semitic people. When we are the same people who they want to be. That’s our birthright.” He later added that “we are the true Hebrews.”
Cannon also spoke about “giving too much power to the ‘they’ — and then the ‘they’ turns into the Illuminati, the Zionists, the Rothschilds.”
Cannon has praised Farrakhan repeatedly on his YouTube show, saying that “every time I’ve heard him speak, it’s positive, it’s powerful, it’s uplifting… for whatever reason, he’s been demonized.”
The prolific actor, singer and TV host’s most recent single is titled “Madoff.”
In 2013, Cannon was criticized by the Anti-Defamation League for appearing in a video from the New Black Panther Party, which the ADL refers to as “the nation’s largest antisemitic and racist black militant group.”
Rabbi David Wolpe, the senior rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, told JI that the comments in the video “are a lamentable combination of ignorance and hostility.”
In comments to JI, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said that “anyone seeking a Ph.D in Jew-hatred should watch this ‘interview’ in its entirety. Farrakhan’s hateful screeds on full display in the next generation inculcating [the] 21st century through cultural figures and social media. Pure poison.”
This post was updated on July 12 at 2:10 am ET.