A lot of the alleged harassment happened earlier than Ye made antisemitic comments in public in late 2022, which led to manufacturers similar to Adidas abruptly slicing ties with the world-renowned rapper, previously referred to as Kanye West.
Ye’s publicist Sasha Brookner despatched The Washington Submit an extended assertion denying the claims, which she attributed to a “authorized consultant” she declined to call. “In response to those baseless allegations, Ye can be submitting a lawsuit in opposition to Ms. Pisciotta, who actively pursued him sexually to coerce employment and different materials advantages, then engaged in blackmail and extortion when her advances have been rejected,” the assertion mentioned.
Pisciotta’s lawyer didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Within the lawsuit, filed Monday in a Los Angeles court docket, Pisciotta mentioned that round July 2021, she was employed to be a 24-hour on-call assistant to Ye and Yeezy manufacturers for a $1 million annual wage. On the time, the swimsuit mentioned, Pisciotta had a social media presence on Instagram and made cash on OnlyFans, an internet site generally used for beginner pornography and modeling. Pisciotta mentioned she beforehand labored with Ye for 3 tracks on his 2021 album, “Donda,” and on Yeezy’s girls’s vogue line.
In August 2022, Pisciotta alleged, Ye supplied her $1 million to delete her OnlyFans account and requested her to be “God like.” She agreed to take action, however was by no means paid the additional cash, the lawsuit mentioned.
After deleting the account, in response to the swimsuit, Pisciotta began getting expletive-filled textual content messages, movies and pictures from Ye. In these messages, he mentioned his sexual wishes and talked about masturbation. She additionally alleged within the swimsuit that Ye locked her in a room alone with him on a flight to Paris and masturbated beneath the covers whereas she sat throughout from him in a chair.
“Defendant would usually inform plaintiff that he all the time wished to have intercourse along with her, and that he held these emotions for a really very long time,” the grievance reads. “Defendant additionally falsely boasted that he had intercourse with plaintiff or would insinuate to his mates, enterprise companions and music and vogue collaborators that he was having intercourse with plaintiff.” Pisciotta mentioned within the swimsuit that she by no means had intercourse with Ye, nor wished to. Ye’s representatives, nevertheless, declare that Pisciotta despatched her boss unsolicited nude pictures and supplied to have intercourse with him on his birthday, a proposal Ye declined.
In September 2022, Pisciotta mentioned, she was promoted to chief of employees for a number of of Yeezy’s enterprise arms, with an extra $3 million added to her annual wage. However she was allegedly by no means paid. A couple of month later, in October, she was terminated from Yeezy and supplied a $3 million severance package deal, the lawsuit mentioned. She accepted the provide, however she mentioned she was by no means paid, in response to the lawsuit.
Ye’s “obsession, fixation and stalking” of Pisciotta allegedly continued after the termination, the lawsuit mentioned. The “Carnival” singer allegedly moved into the identical constructing as Pisciotta, the place the rapper’s “unprofessional and harassing conduct” continued, in response to the grievance.
The assertion despatched by Ye’s publicist supplied a starkly totally different model of occasions, claiming that Pisciotta was fired for incompetence, for demanding a $4 million annual wage, and for “quite a few documented incidents of her lascivious, unhinged conduct.” The assertion claims that she stole Ye’s cellphone earlier than her termination in a failed try and destroy proof of her conduct.
This isn’t the primary time Ye has confronted discontent from workers. A number of staffers for Yeezy accused the rapper of displaying them pornographic materials and sexual content material, in response to a November 2022 report from Rolling Stone. Adidas launched an investigation into complaints from workers about Ye’s actions towards them provided that he and Adidas had a enterprise partnership collectively. (Adidas had severed ties to Ye and Yeezy in October 2022, after he made antisemitic remarks. A number of different firms, similar to Balenciaga and JPMorgan Chase, did the identical.)
Extra not too long ago, right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, who beforehand served as chief of employees for Yeezy, left the corporate after the 2 reportedly clashed over “Yeezy Porn” — which was apparently an grownup movie firm that Ye hoped to launch. Ye has beforehand claimed to have a pornography addiction, which he mentioned was detrimental to his household.
