Kanye West is finally speaking out about the “Gold Toilet Tower” and other over-the-top details of his May 24 wedding to Kim Kardashian.
In May, Page Six reported that West’s wedding at the Forti di Belvedere in Florence, Italy, was a spectacle complete with a 49-foot-tall gold box, which contained the bathrooms (the Italians dubbed it the Torre di Bagni Oro, meaning “the Gold Toilet Tower”), Andrea Bocelli singing Kardashian’s processional, life-size nude marble statues, 80 moving lights, a $136,000 sound system, a custom-built marble piano and a diamond wine cork.
But when asked about the luxurious lavatory in GQ’s August issue, West, 37, fired back, miffed that our spy didn’t talk about “the photographs, or the dress.”
“For the person that wrote that, were they involved with anything last year that was as culturally significant as the ‘Yeezus’ tour or that album? They didn’t even talk there about the photographs, or the dress, or Andrea Bocelli singing, or the marble tables. They’re like: ‘It’s a gold toilet.’ No. The bathrooms — that usually would be a porta-potty — were wrapped in a fabric that was neutral to match the fort,” he explained.
“The bar was terrible, and the wedding planner didn’t approve it with me. I was having issues with this wedding planner the entire time on approvals, and I get there and they threw some weird plastic bar there. So the same materials that were used to cover the bathroom, we said, ‘Let’s just use that, because this is all we have to make the bar look better.’ Which it did, in the end. And anyone knows that you cannot pick up tools yourself, because of — what are those rules about the workers?” he continued.
As for the 45-minute toast that West delivered, the rapper said it was all about fighting for rights of oppressed celebrities.
“What I talked about in it was the idea of celebrity, and celebrities being treated like blacks were in the ’60s, having no rights, and the fact that people can slander your name. I said that in the toast. And I had to say this in a position where I, from the art world, am marrying Kim. And how we’re going to fight to raise the respect level for celebrities so that my daughter can live a more normal life. She didn’t choose to be a celebrity. But she is. So I’m going to fight to make sure she has a better life,” he said.
West and Kardashian’s wedding gave way to more than a grandiose reception — it was also responsible for the most-liked Instagram photo of all time, a snapshot of him kissing his new bride in front of a wall of flowers (which, West revealed at Cannes, the couple worked on “for, like, four days”), and he credits it all to Kardashian.
“It’s because of Kim. Meaning there’s no photo that I would have put up by myself, or next to one of my smarty friends, that would have got that amount of likes. So now you take this photo that has that amount of likes, and it has a flower wall from the same guy who does the Lanvin shows, and it has a couture Givenchy dress and Givenchy tuxedo in it. That’s the point,” he said.
“Now the thing that is the most popular is also communicating the highest level of creativity,” he continued. “The concept of Kimye has more cultural significance than what Page Six could write.”
Debatable.