Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Lyor Cohen Denies His Selfie With Kanye Endorsed White Power — Or Trump

Kayne West’s series of Twitter messages praising President Trump on Wednesday included a selfie with music mogul Lyor Cohen flashing a hand signal that some assumed to have connections to the “alt-right.”

Lyor Cohen, YouTube’s Global Head of Music, showed the “OK” sign while standing next to West, who was wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat. The sign has been appropriated by white nationalist figures like Milo Yiannopoulos and writers of the conspiracy theory blog The Gateway Pundit, who flashed the sign in the White House Press Room.

But a YouTube representative told Spin that the hand signal had any nefarious connections. “The hand gesture made by Lyor Cohen is representative of the company he founded, 300 Entertainment and absolutely nothing more,” the spokesperson wrote.

TMZ noted that Lyor had made the gesture many times before.

While many fans have expressed their disappointment that West has seemed to embrace President Trump, Cohen is sticking with him.

“I went to listen to music and see Kanye,” Cohen said in a statement explaining the selfie. “He is someone I care about. I don’t abandon people. With great music comes great pain and stress. The music is incredible!”

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.