Kanye West Ex-Staffer Seeking $100K in Legal Fees for ‘Frivolous' Effort to Block Lawsuit
The marketing specialist, who sued in February as a Jane Doe, claims her turbulent tenure working for Yeezy in late 2023 and 2024 was filled with verbal abuse, discrimination, and 'constant degradation of women.' She claims West, also known as Ye, sent her harassing texts reading, 'Welcome to the first day of working for Hitler,' and 'Hail Hitler,' before her abrupt termination when she reported West's behavior to her manager. She further claims West once texted her a photo of a nude woman and ordered her to work on his Yeezy Porn venture against her wishes.
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West, 48, was sued individually along with his company. In April, he filed his motion to strike the complaint, claiming the ex-staffer was trying to 'suppress' his constitutionally protected right to artistic expression. 'Ye is not merely a creator; he is art,' the filing said. 'Ye's public and private personas form a continuous, provocative performance that challenges societal taboos surrounding race, religion, gender, power, politics, and censorship.'
A Los Angeles County judge denied West's motion in a June 30 ruling. Judge Theresa M. Traber said the motion was 'rife with defects, specious arguments, and misstatements of law.' She said the declarations West submitted from alleged witnesses, including one from West's self-described chief of staff, Milo Yiannopoulos, were 'totally lacking in personal knowledge or proper foundation upon which to base their asserted opinions.'
In her scathing ruling, Judge Traber said the motion was 'frivolous and/or solely intended to cause unnecessary delay,' so West was on the hook to pay for Doe's 'reasonable' attorney's fees and costs. The woman is now asking for $99,720. A hearing to determine the fairness of that amount is set for Sept. 12.
West's lawyers did not respond to a request for comment on the amount. They are appealing the ruling that upheld the lawsuit. In a failed filing last month that sought to disqualify the judge, they said Jane Doe 'voluntarily entered a provocative creative environment' and later tried to reframe West's creative expression as 'unlawful,' in an alleged violation of West's First Amendment right to free speech. The rapper, meanwhile, has been sued more than a dozen times since his initial, highly public antisemitic tirade nearly three years ago.
In October 2022, West tweeted his now-infamous plan to 'go death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE.' Weeks later, Rolling Stone published an investigation that found West presided over a 'toxic' work environment at his Yeezy label, telling one staffer that 'skinheads and Nazis were his greatest inspiration.' West later apologized in an Instagram post written in Hebrew, but he again promoted antisemitic ideology, sporting a T-shirt for the Norwegian metal musician Burzum, who has been fined for antisemitism. West also promoted Vultures 1 with artwork that evoked Burzum's cover art.
'Ye waged a relentless and deliberate campaign of antisemitism and misogyny against my client,' Jane Doe's attorney, Carney Shegerian of Shegerian & Associates, said in a statement last February. 'His appalling treatment of women and fixation on Nazism, evident in abusive texts where he repeatedly calls himself Hitler, expose his motives. We need to stop excusing Ye's behavior. As a father, husband, and employer, he must be held accountable. Ye dared my client to sue, and we will see him in court.'
West's visa to Australia was revoked last month in the aftermath of his single titled 'Heil Hitler,' which he released in May.
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