Former Ye Employees Allege Racist Work Environment, Unpaid Work in Lawsuit

Ye, formerly Kanye West, is being sued by eight former employees who claim he and former Yeezy Apparel chief of staff Milo Yiannopoulos subjected them to “extreme racism and intimidation” as well as long work hours unpaid.

The group of former employees — made up of young adults and teenagers 14 to 17 years old from the US, UK, Hungary and Nigeria – suffered “intolerable harassment and discrimination” working on an app that Ye and Yiannopoulos were developing, the plaintiffs’ law firm, Thigpen Legal, said in a statement.

The lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, was filed against Ye and Yiannopoulos on Saturday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Members of the app’s development team were “regularly and violently bullied” for parts of their identities such as race, gender and sexual orientation, according to the lawsuit, and some team members were called “slaves” in chats in work-related groups on Discord. , he states. A Discord channel called “New Slaves” was also created for new team members, the lawsuit alleges.

“Black and African employees were segregated and given less favorable work assignments, and separate ‘whites only’ work groups were formed,” Thigpen Legal said in a statement on Sunday. “Underage workers were ridiculed for their age. Additionally, pornography from Defendants’ Yeezy Porn venture was freely shared in the workplace when minors were present.”

The suit included allegations that development team members — including minors — who were invited to work on Ye’s “Yeezy Porn” venture were exposed to pornographic images discussed in work-related group chats.

The suit further says the plaintiffs were threatened with withholding of their wages if they did not agree to work long hours without breaks, including 12-hour shifts that extended into the night. Although the application was completed in early May, none of the plaintiffs were paid for their work, their law firm said Sunday.

A representative for Ye did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday afternoon.

Yiannopoulos, a far-right British political commentator and former editor of Breitbart News, reportedly left Yeezy Apparel last month after Ye revealed plans to launch his own porn studio, saying in a resignation letter provided to TMZ that the project it would put his “life as a recovering addict” at risk, as well as his “spiritual and physical health as an ex-homosexual.”

Asked to comment on the lawsuit, Yiannopoulos directed NBC News to a It issocial media ndeclaration he posted on Saturday, in which he described the complaint as a “joke lawsuit” led by “a disgruntled and comically inept Black developer I call Hotep Susan, who is furious about not being chosen for a full-time job at Yeezy.” .

“The company has signed releases and contractor agreements with all contributors to all closed and open source projects, including parents or guardians where appropriate,” he is onedd. “Yeezy Porn doesn’t exist, so it couldn’t have been shown to anyone. Clowns.”

The lawsuit alleges that Ye’s wife, Bianca Censori, Yeezy’s head of architecture, sent an employee a hardcore pornography file-sharing link to Yeezy Porn and that the company failed to implement guardrails to prevent underage workers from view pornographic photos. which were “openly released” on the Discord channel.

Censori, who is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.

“Many members of the app development team described the stressful working conditions, constantly changing deadlines, and the cult-like behavior of other workers [on the development team] as hostile, intimidating and harassing,” the lawsuit says.

These conditions have subjected many workers to anxiety and depression, he adds, and led them to seek medical care for health complications caused by stress.

The plaintiffs seek compensation for emotional distress, as well as unpaid regular wages and overtime, among other damages.