In what has been nothing short of a dramatic fall from faith, rapper and entrepreneur Kanye West — who once touted an epic salvation story — has announced plans to launch a pornography studio.
“No, don’t do it,” Brittni De La Mora, a former porn star who has found freedom in Christ, emphatically urged West in the latest episode of CBN’s “Faith vs. Culture.” “I think that Kanye is such a creative genius. I believe that his gifts are given to him by God and it’s devastating to see him wanting to use his gifts to serve Satan and not God. It’s really heartbreaking.”
The Full Episode of “Faith vs. Culture”:
West, 46, announced the venture — which he is reportedly launching with longtime pornographer Mike Moz, the ex-husband of adult film star Stormy Daniels — via X. The “Donda” rapper has since deleted his social media, seemingly in response to the intense backlash he’s faced over the news.
Critics have wondered how West, who, in 2019, released his “Jesus Is King” album and began hosting what he dubbed “Sunday Services,” evangelistic events with Gospel music and messages, could launch a platform to produce and host pornographic content.
He has also in the past opened up about being addicted to pornography from an early age, after discovering one of his father’s “Playboy” magazines at just five years old.
“Playboy was my gateway into full-blown pornography addiction,” he said in a past interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “My dad had a ‘Playboy’ left out at age 5, and it’s affected almost every choice I made for the rest of my life. From age 5, to now having to kick the habit. And it just presents itself in the open, like it’s OK. And I stand up and say, you know, it’s not OK.”
West even credited his faith in God for the strength to “beat things that had a full control of me.”
As recently as September 2022, the Yeezy founder and father of four opened up about being addicted to pornography, which he said at the time “destroyed” his family. He and his ex-wife Kim Kardashian finalized their divorce in November of that year.
“Hollywood is a giant brothel,” he wrote in a post on his since-deleted Instagram account. “Pornography destroyed my family[.] I deal with the addiction. … [I’m] not gonna let it happen to Northy and Chicago.”
Adding further confusion, West is the founder of Donda Academy, a private, unaccredited Christian school whose motto is, “To be a reflection of God’s glory in the world.” The school was reportedly shuttered abruptly in 2022, after West made antisemitic remarks, but its current status is unknown as parents and students tied to the academy are required to sign non-disclosure agreements, keep the location of the school private, and refrain from any public discussion about the school’s existence.
Nonetheless, the latest development — West’s desire to launch a porn outlet — is both puzzling and discouraging to those who were inspired by his dramatic conversion to Christianity.
De La Mora, who spent seven years in the pornography industry before coming to faith in Jesus, believes West’s dark turn harkens back to his exposure to and continued struggle with porn addiction.
“It’s definitely taken a toll on him,” she said. “[T]hat is so traumatic, for a five-year-old to see those types of images. And then the fact that it was left untreated, unprocessed. And so he continued watching pornography. And we know that studies show that pornography affects the brain the same way that cocaine does, so it releases the same dopamine in the receptors.”
Much like drug addicts need to escalate their substance abuse over time in order to achieve the same high as their bodies become accustomed to their drug use, those consuming pornography commonly turn toward increasingly deviant content to achieve the same degree of arousal and satisfaction.
“That’s why people are left watching hours on hours of pornography, or they get deep and dark into the world of pornography,” said De La Mora. “They just get deeper into the sin. That’s what we’ve seen with Kanye.”
Ultimately, West’s reversion should serve, she urged, as a clarion call to Christians not to place their faith and hope in a person but to “keep our hope and our faith in God,” the one true source of redemption.
“I was in the adult film industry for seven years,” De La Mora said. “I battled with massive addictions — heroin, cocaine, all kinds of things — and Jesus set me free through seeking Him every single day.”
West’s dramatic paradigm shift came, De La Mora believes, because He failed to trust God completely and was overcome by the weight of a burgeoning faith with the eyes of the world upon him.
When God didn’t answer his prayers for reconciliation within his family, she said, West began doubting the Lord. Those seemingly “unanswered prayers” became “Satan’s gateway,” she asserted.
In a recent interview with radio personality Big Boy, a clearly downtrodden West admitted he has “issues with Jesus” and decided he would rather take matters into his “own hands” than surrender to the Lord.
“There’s a lot of stuff I went through, and I prayed, and I ain’t see Jesus show up,” West said, later adding, “I’m the God of me. You can’t tell me who I am. I can’t tell y’all. I could tell y’all. It’s your job to listen. I’m the God of me. I don’t know if I’m in heaven already.”
This isn’t the first time West has dabbled in that kind of language. In his latest album, “Vultures 1,” which debuted Feb. 10, the rapper referred to himself as “the new Jesus.”
“We have to be so careful when our heart is broken to process with God and to process with the right people,” De La Mora warned in response. “Too often, when our heart’s broken, we want to isolate, and you’re actually never really alone; you’re processing with the enemy when you sit in isolation. And I believe that’s what happened with Kanye.”
A big part of processing in a healthy way for De La Mora — when she first left the porn industry herself — was setting proper boundaries, cutting ties with harmful people, and replacing unhealthy habits with good habits, like devoting herself to Scripture reading, prayer, and serving others.
In fact, the first time she tried to quit porn she was “sucked right back in” because she didn’t distance herself from her life in the industry.
“The second time around, I learned from my mistakes,” she said. “So, when I quit the adult industry the second time, I deleted — I had hundreds of thousands of followers across social media platforms — I deleted everything, because I knew that I wanted to be sold out for Christ, and I could not have that temptation [at my fingertips].”
She even got rid of her old phone and deleted her list of contacts, for fear she would be too tempted to return to the life she was so desperate to leave.
While it is exhilarating to witness dramatic salvation experiences, like West’s and De La Mora’s, the former porn star said that, as Christians, we should be careful not to place too much pressure on new believers as they are learning to navigate their newfound faith in the Lord.
“I think that it is dangerous to platform people when they first give their life to Christ,” she explained. “[I] think that there should be a sacred period where we just let people grow in the Lord before we share what God is doing in their lives.”
You can watch our full conversation with De La Mora below:
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