SNL’s Michael Che Confronts Kanye West for ‘Selling Out’ Cast in Tense 2018 Backstage Moment: ‘What You Got Against Us’

Michael Che confronted Kanye West on Saturday Night Live for “selling out” the cast in 2018, footage from the new In Whose Name? documentary shows.

After the rapper performed on the NBC show and gave a long speech about his support for President Donald Trump and other topics, Che — who coanchors “Weekend Update” with Colin Jost — had a tense exchange with West backstage.

During his rant, West, now 48, said, “you can’t be controlled by monolithic thoughts.”

“You can’t always have, every time you have a Black subject matter like [Bill] Cosby, that you have to have a Black comedian talking about him,” West told the audience. Motioning to Che, he added, “You know what I mean?”

West also claimed he was “bullied” backstage for his “Make America Great Again” hat and was told, “‘Don’t go out there with that hat on.’”

“They bullied me backstage. They bullied me, and then they say I’m in a sunken place. You wanna see the sunken place? I’mma listen to y’all now. I’m gonna put my Superman cape on,” he said.

The documentary then shows Che, now 42, approaching West backstage and sharing his frustrations.

“You good with me? For real? That was f—ed up,” he told the 24-time Grammy winner.

Che wondered why West called him out when he didn’t get a chance to respond. West denied he meant Che and said his comment about the “Black comedian” making the Cosby joke was about Leslie Jones returning.

“I’m the Black comedian that made a joke about Cosby,” Che said. “That’s f—ed up. Why’d you do that to me?”

West responded by telling him he “loved him.”

“I love you, too. I’m a fan. Why would you do that to me?” Che asked. West replied, “I wasn’t doing it to you.”

“I work here. I work here. Like, come on man. We treat everyone that comes in like family and you gonna sell us out. Like, that’s f—ed up man. Like we look up to you, we love you. What you got against us?” Che continued.

West admitted he had “some things against SNL in general.” Che said that was “cool,” but thought airing it out without giving the cast a chance to reply was “foul.”

Toward the end, a third party tried to calm the situation, telling Che to “reconvene in a second” while someone off-camera asked if the next moment could not be recorded.

During his September 2018 appearance on SNL, the rapper performed a third song and gave a long speech about his admiration for President Trump, now 79.

He started by singing, “I wanna cry right now. Black man in America, you’re supposed to keep what you feel inside right now. And the liberals bully you and tell you what you can and cannot wear, where you and they can’t not stare. And they look at me and say, ‘It’s not fair. How the hell did you get here?’ Well…”

Wearing a MAGA hat, he delivered an unexpected speech in front of SNL performers like Jost and host Adam Driver while some of the audience booed.

“Actually, Blacks weren’t always Democrats,” West said at the time. “It’s like a plan they did to take the fathers out the homes and promote welfare. Does anybody know about that? That’s the Democratic plan.”

In Whose Name, now in limited release, features over 3,000 hours of personal footage director Nico Ballesteros filmed over six years with West’s permission, showing the rapper’s mental state and beliefs.