Quentin Tarantino Denies He Stole ‘Django Unchained’ Idea from Kanye West: “That Didn’t Happen”

Quentin Tarantino is responding to Kanye West‘s claims he came up with the idea for the director’s 2012 film Django Unchained. During an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live yesterday (Oct. 27), Tarantino patiently explained what really happened between himself and West, clarifying that he did not steal the concept of Django Unchained from the rapper, but revealing the slight connection between West’s 2004 album and his own bloody Western film.

When Jimmy Kimmel asked Tarantino if there is “any truth” to West’s claim he came up with the idea for Django Unchained when working on his “Gold Digger” music video, Tarantino replied, “There’s not truth to the idea that Kanye West came up with the idea of Django. And then he told it to me and I go, ‘Hey, wow, that’s a really great idea, let me take Kanye’s idea and make Django Unchained out of it.’ Okay, that didn’t happen.”

He added, “I’d had the idea for Django for a while before I ever met Kanye.”

End of story? Not so much. Turns out, there is a faint thread connecting “Gold Digger” and Django Unchained. As Tarantino explains, West wanted to create “a giant movie version of College Dropout,” his debut album.

“He wanted to get big directors to do a different tracks from the album and then release it as this giant movie,” he told Kimmel. “Not videos, nothing as crass as videos. They were movies. They were gonna be movies based on each of the different tracks.”

He and West used the movie concept “as an excuse to meet each other,” Tarantino said, and the pair “had a really good time” together.

“He did have an idea for a video, and I do think it was for the ‘Gold Digger’ video, that he would be a slave,” Tarantino recalled. “And the whole thing was the slave narrative, where he’s the slave, and he’s singing ‘Gold Digger.’ And it was very funny. It was a really, really funny idea.”

When Kimmel skeptically remarked, “it was a funny slave video,” Tarantino insisted, “It was meant to be ironic. It’s like a huge musical. I mean, like, no expenses spared, alright? With him in this, like, slave rag outfit doing everything. And then that was also part of the pushback on it.”

While the project never materialized, Tarantino said he wished West had carried out the video, telling Kimmel, “It sounded really cool. Anyway, that’s what he’s referring to.”

Tarantino’s comments come about a week after West claimed in a Piers Morgan interview that the director used his idea for the “Gold Digger” video for Django Unchained.

“Tarantino can write a movie about slavery where, actually – him and Jamie, they got the idea from me because the idea for Django, I pitched to Jamie Foxx, and Quentin Tarantino as the video for Gold Digger, and then Tarantino turned into a film,” West claimed.

Jimmy Kimmel Live airs weeknights at 11:35/10:35c. Watch Tarantino’s appearance in the video above.