GRAHAM LINEHAN and Kanye West don't have a whole lot in common.
One is an Irish television comedy writer and director best known for Father Ted, Black Books and The IT Crowd.
The other, is arguably one of the greatest rap artists of all time and a man who has sold more than 100 million digital downloads and 21 million albums worldwide.
However, those disparate worlds collided online after Linehan waded into the ongoing Twitter storm surrounding the rapper.
Kanye's latest controversy surrounds an interview with TMZ and subsequent series of tweets in which the musician suggested the enslavement of African Americans over several hundred years may have been a "choice".
"When you hear about slavery for 400 years ... for 400 years? That sounds like a choice," he said during an appearance on TMZ.
"We're mentally imprisoned," the star said.
He later tweeted that his comments had been misinterpreted adding that he "brought up the 400 years point because we can't be mentally imprisoned for another 400 years".
The comments sparked an angry response on Twitter, though Linehan was able to find a little humour in the situation, responding to one of West's many tweets with an amusing bit of advice:
Linehan also retweeted a video of TMZ employee Van Lathan rebuking West's claims that black people were "choosing to be enslaved".
Man @VanLathan thank you for saying what you said to Kanye. pic.twitter.com/IxYvA7FYVJ
— Matthew A. Cherry (@MatthewACherry) May 1, 2018
"You're entitled to believe whatever you want, but there is fact and real-world, real-life consequence behind everything that you just said," Van Lathan says in the clip.
"We have to deal with the marginalisation that has come from the 400 years of slavery that you said for our people was a choice," he continued.
"I'm appalled, and brother I am unbelievably hurt by the fact that you have morphed into something to me that isn't real."
