Skip to main content

South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker are both used to making fun of celebrities on their hit television show. But they figured certain celebrities weren’t used to being poked fun of at all, including Kanye West. So when the pair parodied the rapper in their classic episode, Stone expected some kind of retribution.

Kanye West completely surprised Matt Stone with his reaction

'South Park' creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone at the The Book of Mormon opening night at Princess Theatre.
Trey Parker and Matt Stone | Chris Hopkins/Getty Images

All the way back in 2009, Stone and Parker poked fun at the rapper and his ego in the South Park episode ‘Fishsticks.’ The duo expected the episode would eventually reach West, and anticipated a harsh and maybe overblown response.

“I mean, I don’t think about that stuff that much. But I was like, “Oh dude, these hip-hop guys, they don’t like to f*** around. Especially with homophobia.’ I think Kanye’s actually been on the right side of that. He’s been pretty open-minded about gay stuff. But hip-hop’s not super gay friendly in general,” Stone once said to Pitchfork.

But West’s response wasn’t anywhere near as volatile as Stone thought it would be. Instead, West was grateful for the episode, which caught Stone off guard.

“That was the last thing we expected. These days, we rip on people on South Park, and they send us letters of thanks. And Kanye’s like, ‘Yeah, I’ve got to work on myself and be a better person.’ It’s such a weird reaction people are having lately. Maybe it’s like we’re losing our sting, but maybe people have realized that you should just say, ‘Yeah, yeah, you’re right,’ and move on,” Stone said.

How exactly did Kanye West respond to his ‘South Park’ episode

West wrote a pretty extensive post about why he appreciated the South Park episode. In a blog post collected by MTV News, West shared that he enjoyed the episode despite his wounded pride.

“South Park murdered me last night, and it’s pretty funny. It hurts my feelings, but what can you expect from South Park?” West wrote. “I actually have been working on my ego. … Having the crazy ego is played out at this point in my life and career. I used to use it to build up my esteem when nobody believed in me. Now that people do believe and support my music, the best response is ‘Thank you’ instead of ‘I told you so!’”

West also shared that he was working on improving himself at the time, which also factored into his response back then.

“I just wanna be a doper person, which starts with me not always telling people how dope I think I am. I need to just get past myself. Drop the bravado and just make dope product,” he added. “As long as I act like a b****, this type of s*** will happen to me. … I’m not actually a huge douche. I’m sure the writers at South Park are really nice people in real life. Thanks for taking the time to draw my crew. That was pretty funny also.”

How Bill Hader helped write the funniest bit about Kanye West in ‘South Park’

South Park’s Kanye West episode was a group effort that Bill Hader helped make happen. The Saturday Night Live alum shared that he worked as a creative consultant for South Park. His contributions led to the episode ‘Fishsticks.’

“The first episode I worked on with them was this one with Kanye West called ‘Fishsticks’,” Hader once told the New York Times. “They have these retreats, South Park retreats, and you get to stay in a nice hotel, and then you wake up in the morning, you go to a suite, and you just talk about South Park ideas… That’s where we came up with ‘Fishsticks’ because we were watching these salmon go up a thing, and then Matt was like, ‘What if one of them was just on an Evel Knievel bike?’”

Best in Entertainment