For the first time in almost two years, Twitter has apparently been graced with the presence of Kanye West.
The artist now known as Ye hadn't tweeted since a flurry of political posts in November 2020, but a short announcement about Twitter Spaces was spotted by thousands of fans before being deleted.
West has a fraught history with social media. His Twitter account often made headlines and he has been heavily criticized for Instagram posts about his ex-wife Kim Kardashian and her former boyfriend Pete Davidson. In early August, amid reports the pair were no longer dating, he posted a mock death notice for Davidson. West has since deleted all his Instagram posts.
Late on Wednesday night, a tweet appeared on West's account for the first time since November 4, 2020.
"I'm on Spaces," he wrote, sharing a link to a Twitter Spaces event with blogger and gossip columnist Jason Lee. Spaces is an audio option that allows users to broadcast live conversations.
Lee owns the gossip website Hollywood Unlocked and gained notoriety in February this year for reporting the "exclusive news" that Queen Elizabeth II had died-before having to concede that he got it wrong.
Can someone teach me Spaces. I wanna open up the love lines.
The tweet on West's account was deleted soon after it appeared, disappointing fans who were anticipating a conversation between Lee and the rapper.
The post was screengrabbed by multiple sources before it vanished, but no other update was shared on West's Twitter account or his other social media channels.
Lee posted about his attempt to host an audio broadcast on his own account, writing: "Can someone teach me Spaces." But he did not explicitly mention West.
The blink-and-you'll-miss-it tweet was enough to give hope to the rapper's fans.
"i really want kanye to come back to twitter. please let that spaces link be a sign that he is returning to this app bro tweeted nothing but bangers," wrote user @zetexkindasucks.
A Ye fan account, @KanyePodcast, aka Watching the Throne, created a YouTube video to discuss the situation. It told viewers that 12,000 people joined the Spaces link in the West tweet, but the artist was not involved in the live conversation.
The host speculates that, because Lee took over West's social media accounts for the Donda album release, he might have accidentally tweeted from Ye's Twitter account.
Another West fan account, @Yzyupdates on Twitter, offered the same theory, adding that the response demonstrated the rapper's popularity.
"Jason Lee accidentally tweeted a Twitter Spaces link from Kanye's twitter account and 40k people were in there in 5 minutes. Kanye West's power is still undeniable," they wrote.
If the fan theories are correct, West's most recent Twitter activity was in July 2021, when he liked a video of Cardi B lip syncing in a mirror.
Newsweek has reached out to West and Lee for further comment.
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