Kanye West. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images For Roc Nation
Kanye West is being sued by eight former employees over allegations of a hostile work environment, unpaid wages, discrimination and more while developing a new app for the artist earlier this year.
The rapper, 47, along with his Yeezy brand and former head of staff Milo Yiannopoulos, were named in a lawsuit filed by the former YZYVSN employees – some of whom are minors – in the Central District Court in California on Saturday, June 29.
In the filing obtained by Us Weekly, the former employees, whose ages range from 14 to 25 and are from various countries, alleged that they were not paid for long working hours and were subjected to harassment, including being called “slaves” and “new slaves” in the company’s Discord channel. (Discord is an app in which users can communicate via voice calls, video calls, messaging and more.)
They also claimed that the work environment was “hostile” as app developers on the team were allegedly bullied over their race, gender, age, sexual orientation and more, according to the suit.
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Us Weekly has reached out to West’s team for comment.
Additionally, the former employees alleged they were subjected to pornographic images in the workplace after West began touting the idea of adult film venture Yeezy Porn in April. The lawsuit claims that West’s wife, Bianca Censori, “sent a YZYVSN worker a file sharing link of hardcore pornography” for the app.
“No guardrails were put in place to prevent the underaged YZYVSN workers from working on Yeezy Porn, or to prevent them from being exposed to and being forced to view pornography to perform their work,” the suit states.
Censori, 29, vehemently denied the allegations in a statement given to Page Six via Yiannopoulos, 39, on Monday.
“I’ve been authorized by Bianca to stress that any allegation that she showed or caused to be shown any pornographic material to minors is offensive, disgusting, abhorrent and categorically and wholly false,” he told the outlet.
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The lawsuit also claims that West and Yiannopoulos told employees that they would be paid upon completion of the app; however, none of the plaintiffs received their wages.
Yiannopoulos responded to the filing via X on June 29, writing in a series of posts that the “joke lawsuit” was filed by a “disgruntled” former employee who is “mad he didn’t get chosen for a full-time Yeezy job.”
The employees are seeking payment for unpaid wages and attorney fees, and damages for emotional distress.
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The lawsuit comes nearly a month after West’s former assistant, Lauren Pisciotta, sued him for sexual harassment, hostile work environment and wrongful termination.
In addition to Pisciotta’s allegations, West has also faced multiple lawsuits for his school, the Donda Academy, dating back to April 2023. Several teachers have alleged that the school has multiple health and safety violations, which they claim West has ignored.
At the time, an attorney for West denied the claims and asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit. “None of it is true and the allegations do a disservice to the Donda Academy’s current staff and students and their parents who will attest to their positive experience,” attorney Gregory Suhr said in court docs obtained by NBC News in June 2023.
