Kanye West was a guest on the Ellen show yesterday. It was his first interview since the whole Taylor Swift VMA debacle over a year ago. Kanye was markedly different from the last time I remember seeing him interviewed, on Conan in November, 2008. In that older Conan interview, Kanye wore his sunglasses the entire time and was pretty much a massive dick. Kanye was much more personable with Ellen, although he still made some wacky pronouncements that massively overestimated his role in society, as is typical for him.

Although most of us didn’t notice, Kanye was out of the country for months trying to escape the shame of becoming an Internet meme. He told Ellen that he went to Japan at first, lived in Rome for a few months and then came back earlier this year to stay in Hawaii, where he was working on his new album. During that time, he had his entire row of bottom teeth replaced with diamonds and gold, at least that’s how he explained it. He said it wasn’t a “grill” and was his actual teeth. I know Kanye is ridiculous and self-important, but I thought he had better taste than that. The guy doesn’t wear a lot of bling or chains. He just didn’t seem like the type to get diamond teeth, but he obviously is.

Sure, a trip to the dentist can be expensive for anyone, but when you’ve got a taste for bling like Kanye West does, it can cost a fortune.

In a move that seems pretty extreme even for Kanye-loving Kanye, the rapper has had his bottom row of teeth removed and replaced with diamonds. The star showed off his new sparkling mouth bling when he appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres show yesterday.

Ellen questioned him during a commercial break about what she thought was a grill (a piece of dental jewellery that snaps over teeth and is removable) but the too-rich-for-his-own-good rapper explained the diamonds are not removable but an actual implant.

“It’s really my real teeth,” he said. “It’s replaced my bottom row of teeth.”

“You’ve ripped all those teeth out and put in that?” Ellen asked.

“I just thought the diamonds were cooler,” he replied. “There’s just certain stuff that rock stars are supposed to do.”

“You can’t floss,” Ellen quipped. “Wow, so now you just get food stuck in your diamonds!”

[From NineMSN.com]

I was pretty confused about how it was possible to have permanent diamond teeth and if one had to really take the teeth out to put in diamond implants. Apparently the diamonds are drilled on top of his real teeth, as is explained in another interview Kanye did recently with Vanity Fair. He explained simply to VF that “I just like diamond teeth and I didn’t feel like having to take them out all the time.”

Lil Wayne also has diamonds permanently encrusted on his teeth, at a cost of about $150,000 for both his upper and lower teeth. At least Kanye’s are a bit more discreet but they still look gaudy. E! has some analysis from a dentist claiming that the teeth are not permanent and are a removable “grill,” but they seem to be judging from a picture Kanye posted to Twitter in late July when he was wearing a grill prior to his procedure. His teeth on Ellen looked different and more permanent. E!’s dentist notes “Those things are.. terrible plaque traps, and your mouth will stink. The only way to make it work is to have the diamond piece be removable.” Ha!

Getting back to Kanye’s interview, he told Ellen that he wasn’t going to attend another awards ceremony ever again. He did perform at the VMAs this year, but he was careful to specify that he wouldn’t be in the audience at future awards shows. I doubt that will last, but he did drop out of sight for a while and that’s more than I would have expected from him.

And there are new interviews with Kanye on Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood, where he talks about how unfair the Grammys have been, Kanye is back and he has sparkly stinky teeth to go along with that whine.