Fact Check

Did Kanye West Score 106 Points Against a Wheelchair Basketball Team?

“We play with shorter basketball hoops and he was dunking all over us. The smack talk got out of hand and some of our players started crying.”

Published Sept. 18, 2014

Claim:
Rapper Kanye West scored 106 points in a charity basketball game against a team of children in wheelchairs.

Origin

On 17 September 2014, the now-defunct Daily Currant website published an article positing that rapper Kanye West had scored 106 points in a charity basketball game against a team of children in wheelchairs:

A charity basketball game didn't go exactly as planned yesterday when Kanye West scored 106 points against a team of handicapped children in wheelchairs.

The game was a PR move intended to smooth over the controversy that erupted this week between Kanye and the disabled community. At one of his concerts recently West repeatedly asked wheelchaired fans to stand, and refused to apologize for his mistake afterwards.

The Basketball Wheelchair Charity for Cancer event pitted disabled middle school children against Kanye and his entourage. Kanye’s team seemed hesitant to play as hard since they were not also in wheelchairs as originally planned.

Soon links and excerpts referencing this article were being circulated via social media, with many of those who encountered such reports mistaking them for genuine news items. However, the original article was just a humorous spoof of current events from the Daily Currant, a site whose "About" page noted that they dealt strictly in satire:

The Daily Currant is an English language online satirical newspaper that covers global politics, business, technology, entertainment, science, health and media.

Q. Are your news stories real?

A. No. Our stories are purely fictional. However they are meant to address real-world issues through satire and often refer and link to real events happening in the world.

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.

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