Image Credit: Jun Sato/WireImage.comWalmart had nothing to do with nixing Kanye West’s NSFW cover artwork for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, reps for the retail giant tell EW.

West referenced the chain in a snarky tweet last night, writing, “In all honesty … I really don’t be thinking about Wal-Mart when I make my music or album covers #Kanyeshrug!” A report in the Los Angeles Times cited concerns within West’s label about “whether or not mass-market retailers such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart would carry an album featuring venomous nudes.” But Walmart is doing its best to stay out of this story.

“We’re excited about Kanye West’s new album and we look forward to carrying it in our stores on November 22nd,” a Walmart spokesperson says in a statement provided to EW. “As always, it’s our standard practice to carry the edited parental advisory version. We did not reject the cover artwork and it was never presented to us to view.”

Note especially that last part: Walmart never even saw the cover artwork, let alone “banning” it. So any internal Def Jam debate involving the store must have been a strictly hypothetical one.

What do you think of this latest update? Sound off in the comments.

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Image Credit: Will Ragozzino/Getty ImagesKanye West has cooked up another controversy, this time over the cover art for his upcoming album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

“Yoooo they banned my album cover!!!!!” the rapper tweeted last night. He followed up with a link to the supposedly “banned” image, an NSFW painting with a bright red border in which a leering man clutches a green bottle in one hand while being straddled by a naked woman with white feathery wings, a polka-dotted tail, and menacingly sharp teeth. (See it after the jump.) “Banned in the USA!!!” West added via Twitter. “They don’t want me chilling on the couch with my phoenix… In the 70s album covers had actual nudity… It’s so funny that people forget that… Everything has been so commercialized now… So Nirvana can have a naked human being on they cover but I can’t have a PAINTING of a monster with no arms and a polka dot tail and wings.”

One slight problem with West’s story: According to the Los Angeles Times, no one exactly “banned” the racy album cover. An anonymous Island Def Jam source tells the Times that while the label “strongly urged” West to ditch the image, he “was told if he wanted to do it, the label would stand behind him.” In other words, he’s almost certainly just trying to stir up some extra buzz for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy‘s expected Nov. 22 release. Can you blame him?

West’s reps have not responded to EW’s request for comment. Check out his “banned” album cover after the jump. What do you think? Are West’s critics making too big a deal about painted nudity, or is he the one wasting our time with a silly publicity stunt?

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