In the past week, information has been obtained from two lawsuits filed against Kanye West. The allegations are intense and feel particularly troubling given the recent indictment of industry peer, Diddy.
So what has been reported, who are the key players and what has Kanye (known also as “Ye”) had to say about it?
Last week, Rolling Stone obtained a 22-page lawsuit filed by a Michigan John Doe against Kanye “on counts of emotional distress, retaliation, and several violations of California labor codes.” The claims alleged that Kanye “had a pattern of “erratic behaviour” after taking nitrous oxide” (after being linked to celebrity-dentist Thomas P. Connelly in July), and more alarmingly, that Kanye reportedly hired investigators to trail both ex-wife Kim Kardashian and current wife Bianca Censori.
Originally hired at Yeezy as campaign manager when Kanye was considering another presidential run in 2022, John Doe claims his role transitioned to “Director of Intelligence”, reporting he was “tasked with preemptively trying to limit West’s risks and bad press.”
The lawsuit reports John Doe was instructed to “hire private investigators to follow and ‘tail’ his wife, Bianca Censori, when she was travelling alone to visit family in Australia, without Ms. Censori’s knowledge.”
John Doe believes that Kanye’s erratic behaviour (such as splashing out on $850,000 titanium teeth and firing “a large majority of the Yeezy leadership”) aligned with his alleged recreational use of nitrous oxide.
Concerningly, John Doe also recalls when he was verbally abused and threatened by Kanye after an incident involving staff from Kanye’s Christian independent school, Donda Academy.
“Doe’s employment came to an end in mid-May, the lawsuit claims, when he allegedly received a call from a Donda Academy teacher regarding safety concerns they had about some of the students. Doe claims he informed Yeezy leadership about the call and “almost immediately” Kanye allegedly “called Doe to yell, curse, and threaten Doe with great bodily injury, including death, if Doe repeated what Doe learned from the Donda employee.”
Variety’s coverage of the story details ex-wife Kim and her famous family’s involvement, with the lawsuit claiming “John Doe was also tasked by Ye with investigating the Kardashian family and supposed various criminal links Ye believed they had with criminal enterprises, including alleged sex trafficking.”
Representatives for the Kardashians are yet to comment.
Days after John Doe’s lawsuit, details from a now updated lawsuit (originally filed in June) from influencer Lauren Pisciotta against Kanye have emerged. And it’s all pretty heinous.
Lauren’s lawsuit accuses Kanye of “allegedly sexually harassing and stalking her while she worked for him in 2021-22,” and details the text messages he sent her regarding his relationship with Bianca and her family.
As per Daily Mail, “He allegedly sent Pisciotta a screenshot on September 28, 2022, of a text conversation between him and Censori about wanting to have sex with her mother. ‘i wanna f**k your mum. Before she leaves,’ he graphically wrote, the lawsuit claims. According to the filing, he asked Pisciotta: ‘Should I add I meant I want you to watch me f**k your mom’.”
Perhaps the most disturbing allegation from Lauren is that Kanye “drugged and sexually assaulted her during a studio session he co-hosted with Diddy,” after attendees of the session were served drinks.
“After a few small sips of the beverage, poured at the direction of Kanye West a.k.a. Ye by a studio assistant and then served to her by Kanye West, Plaintiff suddenly started to feel disoriented,” the suit alleges. “Pisciotta claims she got roofied. Pisciotta says upon waking up she felt ‘immense shame and embarrassment’ but could remember almost nothing about what happened,” reports Billboard.
Further, Lauren alleges Kanye admitted the two “did kind of hook up” after she questioned him about the event days later.
Earlier this year, Kanye and Yeezy (the brand) were sued by former employees, alleging “forced labor and cruel inhuman, or degrading treatment” and that “they found themselves subject to racist and degrading language” from Kanye and Chief of Staff, Milo Yiannopoulos. The lawsuit also claimed Bianca “allegedly sent a file-sharing link to pornography to a group of individuals that included a 14-year-old who was working on the project.”
Then, there was the lawsuit from former Donda Academy employee Trevor Phillips that accused Kanye of “mistreating Black employees, praising Adolf Hitler in front of students, pretending to masturbate in front of employees and pushing to shave students’ hair and lock them in cages,” as per Forbes.
While Kanye denied Lauren’s allegations back in June, referring to them as “baseless”, he has yet to make any sort of public statement about any of his legal trouble since.
Watch this space.
Written by Lil Friedmann. You can follow her at @lilfriedmann on socials.
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