Kanye West is being sued by the mother of George Floyd's daughter after claiming Floyd died from a fentanyl overdose.
The rapper made the comments in a since-deleted podcast, claiming Floyd - who was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020 - had died from taking fentanyl.
Chauvin was captured on camera kneeling on Floyd's neck for over nine minutes while Floyd begged to be let go, pleading, "I can't breathe."
However, West said the now ex-officer's knee "wasn't even on his neck like that."
The Daily Mail reported Roxie Washington, the mother of Floyd's daughter Gianna, had launched a US$250m lawsuit and issued a cease-and-desist notice to West for his comments
Washington said West had made "false statements" about Floyd to "promote his brands".
Nuru Witherspoon, a partner at The Witherspoon Law Group who is representing the family, said in a statement: "The interests of the child are priority.
"George Floyd's daughter is being traumatised by Kanye West's comments and he's creating an unsafe and unhealthy environment for her.
"Some words have consequences and Mr West will be made to understand that."
The rapper made the comments after raving about Candace Owens' documentary The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM.
"They hit [Floyd] with the fentanyl. If you look, the guy's knee wasn't even on his neck like that.
"They said he screamed for his mama; mama was his girlfriend. It's in the documentary," West is reported as saying.
The comments are the latest in a string of controversies involving West.
Earlier in October, the 'Stronger' rapper got into trouble for wearing a White Lives Matter shirt to his Yeezy fashion show in Paris.
He used Instagram to defend himself, saying, "When an artist like Ye challenges those framed spaces - in a dialectical way - he is persecuted.
"He puts the grand narratives at risk," the 45-year-old said. "Ye proves that if artists have an opinion in territories that are unknown and new, like any true revolutionary, they are assaulted. Ye is an artist, Ye cares about all lives, all people, and he is working against all oppression."
He's also been banned from Twitter and Instagram for "using language that appeared to be anti-Semitic."
