With one text, “American Psycho” writer Bret Easton Ellis became a member of the Kanye West‘s clique.
He was enlisted earlier this summer by West to help reimagine a memorable scene from his famed 1991 novel in a promo video for his Yeezus track The clip re-creates one of the bloodier, more unforgettable scenes from the novel and later film, which starred Christian Bale as deranged Wall Streeter Patrick Bateman.
“I wrote it. Kanye came to me and asked me to write it so I wrote the promo. I just got a text one day… it said, ‘It’s Kanye, do you have time to rap?’ And then suddenly my phone rang and someone said, ‘Kanye got your number and he wants you to write this promo for Yeezus,‘ ” Ellis told MTV News. “And so we went back and forth on it and he wanted it done, like, that day. So I wrote it very quickly and they shot it two or three days later.”
The new short clip casts “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” star and noted Patrick Bateman lookalike, Scott Disick, in the lead role alongside Kim Kardashian’s bestie, Jonathan Cheban (who is in for Jared Leto’s character). After a pro-Kanye monologue, “New Slaves” plays in the background as Disick hacks away at Cheban, mirroring a scene from the movie.
While it may have seemed like unusual casting, Disick is in Kanye’s inner circle (he’s dating Kourtney Kardashian) and is already Ellis-approved as a Bateman stand-in.
“I had tweeted many times about Scott Disick and ‘American Psycho’ and we had gone back and forth, and so it all kind of just came together very, very quickly,” Ellis explained. “And it was fun.”
He continued, “We all had our problems with it, but ultimately the fact that Kanye liked it so much it helped change whatever reservations we had. Scott really has problems that he didn’t shave his beard and that his voice got really high, but it’s funny. It’s really just a goof.”
And, as it turns out, West liked working with Ellis so much that he’s planning something else with the novelist, though that remains a mystery. He delicately revealed, “And then Kanye and I have been meeting about writing a script for him and so that’s a project that’s kind of in the works.”
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