Calling Employees 'New Slaves' and Bianca Censori Sending Them Porn: Kanye West's Former Subordinates Sue Him
Kanye West's former employees who worked on his new project, the YZYVSN app, are suing him for creating a racist environment and abusive working conditions, TMZ reports.
The development team has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Kanye West and his partner Milo Yiannopoulos, alleging that they used "forced labor and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment" on their employees, some of whom were minors.
It all started in the spring of 2024, when West decided to create the YZYVSN music listening app, which was supposed to compete with the well-known platforms Spotify and Apple Music. The lawsuit says that West did not want to pay these companies to promote his new albums "Vultures" and "Vultures 2."
To work on the app, the rapper and his partner hired an international team of developers, including several black employees and minors as young as 14. Court documents say the team worked mostly remotely, staying in constant contact with Kanye and Milo. In April, Yiannopoulos promised to pay the developers $120,000 once the app was completed, but that never happened.
The lawsuit says West ordered all employees to sign non-disclosure agreements, threatening to fire minors and refusing to pay them if they failed to do so. The teens were also required to sign "volunteer" agreements. Then, Kanye's "white" managers, who oversaw the foreign workers, created a hostile work environment by using group chats to communicate with employees in offensive ways based on their age, race, gender, sexual orientation, and national origin. Some team members were called "slaves" and others "new slaves."
Employees also told the court that Milo once sent a black person emoji to an African-American team member in a work chat and called one young employee a school shooter. Some workers complained that they were intimidated into working nights and were left without pay or time to sleep.
It is worth noting that Milo Yiannopoulos is a former editor of Breitbart News, an American far-right news site. He is known as a political commentator who criticizes feminism, Islam, social justice, and political correctness in his speeches and articles. Kanye previously hired Milo to work on his election campaign, Rolling Stone reports.
In late April, West announced his intention to create his own company to create adult films, "Yeezy Porn." At the same time, his wife Bianca sent one of the employees a link to a file-sharing service containing pornographic material, the lawsuit says. Underage employees were not protected from receiving this file, since they also took part in the development of the "porn application."
This isn't the first time Kanye West has faced allegations from his employees. This spring, Kanye West's former security guard, Benjamin Provost, accused the rapper of racial discrimination. And a month ago, the artist's former assistant said she faced sexual harassment from him.
On June 30, Kanye West flew to Moscow to attend the birthday of his Yeezy brand designer Gosha Rubchinskiy.