NEED TO KNOW
- Former project manager Tony Saxon is suing Kanye West for $1 million over unpaid wages and nightmarish working conditions at a gutted Malibu mansion.
- While testifying in downtown L.A., Ye gave brief answers, repeatedly claimed he couldn’t remember details, and appeared to doze off on the witness stand.
- Despite the sleepy performance, the rapper did perk up to confirm that his former employee had “bad body odor” and to demand he be addressed simply as “Ye.”
Ye, the artist inextricably tied to the name Kanye West, had a very long, very tiring day in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom.
The rapper was called to the witness stand on Friday to testify in a $1 million lawsuit filed by his former project manager, Tony Saxon. But instead of delivering the kind of high-energy, unfiltered monologue we’ve come to expect from the controversial mogul, Ye mostly served up yawns, heavy eyelids, and brief bouts of unconsciousness.
Saxon is suing Ye over alleged unpaid wages and grueling working conditions tied to the 2021 renovation of a $57.3 million Malibu mansion designed by Tadao Ando. According to Saxon, he was hired for $20,000 a week to essentially gut the architectural masterpiece and turn it into an “open-concept, off-the-grid bunker.”
That apparently meant ripping out custom cabinets, destroying the plumbing, and trashing the windows.
Saxon’s lawsuit alleges he was forced to work 18-hour days, act as a 24/7 security guard, and sleep on a thin mattress on the bare concrete floor. When Saxon allegedly complained about the safety risks of using large indoor generators, he says Ye fired him.
But while the allegations are intense, Ye’s court appearance was anything but.
According to Variety, Ye “repeatedly yawned, closed his eyes for long stretches, and at times seemed to catch his head falling forward as if dozing while seated on the witness stand.”
The sleepy performance didn’t go unnoticed. The plaintiff’s attorney, Ron Zambrano, reportedly caught the vibe, mouthing to a fellow lawyer, “Is he asleep?”
When Ye actually managed to keep his eyes open, his testimony was shockingly brief. He mostly stuck to saying “yes,” “no,” or “I don’t recall.”
However, there were a few moments that managed to cut through the brain fog. When a lawyer addressed him formally, the rapper was quick to correct the record. “It’s just Ye. No ‘mister,'” he instructed.
He also couldn’t remember various mundane interactions with his former employee. Ye drew a blank on trips to McDonald’s, a visit to a hardware store, and an emergency phone call about Saxon running out of gas.
But when asked, “Do you have any memory of Mr. Saxon having a bad body odor?” Ye suddenly found his memory. “Yes,” he answered.
The trial itself sounds like a chaotic fever dream. Saxon alleges that Ye demanded all the plumbing, electricity, and windows be removed from the mansion. He even wanted the stairs replaced with slides.
During his testimony, Ye actually offered a minor correction regarding the slide blueprint, noting that he only wanted one staircase changed, not all of them. He also clarified that the home’s plumbing wasn’t going to be entirely eliminated, it “was going to be a different system.”
This sleepy testimony followed a slightly more alert appearance by Ye’s wife, Bianca Censori. Censori took the stand a day earlier and confirmed that Saxon was, indeed, fired from the gig.
“He got fired,” Censori told the court. “It wasn’t unusual that he would be fired.”
She also claimed that Saxon misrepresented his professional background.
“When I stopped working at the house, I said, ‘Do you have a contractor’s license?’ And he said he did,” Censori testified.
Saxon has vehemently denied this, previously testifying, “I told him I was just a guy with a minivan, not a licensed contractor.”
With the trial expected to stretch on for a couple of weeks, we can only hope someone sneaks a cold brew into the courtroom for Ye’s next cross-examination.
