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Last week, amid rumors that he and Bianca Censori were headed for divorce, Kanye West was accused of sexual assault in a lawsuit filed by his ex-assistant. Lauren Pisciotta first sued her former boss for wrongful termination in June, claiming the rapper sexually harassed her and fired her after she wouldn’t sleep with him. Now, she’s amended her complaint to include even more disturbing details about the alleged harassment, inappropriate work environment, fraud, and breach of contract — as well as accusations of sexual assault. Several salacious claims from her suit have made tabloid headlines, including a text she says Ye once sent to Censori about wanting to have sex with her mother, and an encounter involving music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was recently arrested on sex-trafficking charges.
Pisciotta’s lawsuit is just the latest of Ye’s many legal battles — he’s currently facing a litany of lawsuits, some stemming from his now-defunct school, Donda Academy, and others related to his alleged treatment of his employees. Here’s what we know about Pisciotta’s allegations.
Lauren Pisciotta claims Kanye West sexually harassed her for years.
In her filing, which was obtained by the Cut, Pisciotta says she started working with Ye in 2015, when she contributed to his Yeezy Season 1 fashion line, and later worked on a few songs featured on his 2021 album, DONDA. That year, the suit states, she was hired as his “executive assistant/personal assistant” and told to be available to him at all times for a salary of $1,000,000.
The following year, Pisciotta said, Ye suddenly offered her an additional $1,000,000 to delete her OnlyFans account — she claims he wanted her to be more “God like.” She said in her suit that she complied and soon found herself on the receiving end of a barrage of sexually explicit text messages that discussed everything from Ye’s elaborate sexual fantasies — many of them involving her or other Yeezy employees — to the penis size of her boyfriends. She also claimed Ye would masturbate while on the phone with her, and says that at one point he locked her in his bedroom while on a private jet and masturbated in front of her until he fell asleep. Pisciotta also claims to have been tasked with coordinating Ye’s many encounters with sex workers and orgies, which she says often included delivering a sexual-enhancement product he referred to as his “sex honey.”
Pisciotta’s claims recall previous allegations related to Ye’s behavior toward Yeezy employees. In a 2022 Rolling Stone report, former staffers accused him of showing pornography as well as explicit photos and videos of his then-wife Kim Kardashian during meetings.
Pisciotta claims she was promoted to Ye’s “chief of staff” in September 2022 before being fired the following month with a $3 million severance package, which she says she was never paid. She sued Ye for sexual harassment, breach of contract, wrongful termination, fraud, unpaid wages, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Ye vehemently denied Pisciotta’s claims through a legal rep.
Once Pisciotta’s allegations made the news in June, Ye’s representatives issued a lengthy response, painting a very different picture of his relationship with Pisciotta. A legal representative for West told Rolling Stone that Pisciotta’s claims were “baseless,” explaining that “she was terminated for being unqualified, demanding unreasonable sums of money (including a $4 million annual salary), and numerous documented incidents of her lascivious, unhinged conduct.”
Claiming that Pisciotta used “sexual coercion” to demand an Hermès bag, a Lamborghini, and plastic surgery, Ye’s representation accused his former assistant of sending him “unsolicited nude images” and offering him sex on his birthday — advances he claims he rejected, prompting her to attempt to blackmail him for $60 million. The statement also expressed plans to file a countersuit, though no lawsuits against Pisciotta appear to have been filed.
Pisciotta’s amended filing includes new details about Bianca Censori — and her mom.
Pisciotta filed an amended complaint on October 8, which is more than triple the length of her original document and goes into much more detail about what she allegedly suffered during and after her tenure at Yeezy. She recalled being told by one of Ye’s friends that her boss had offered her up as a “gift” and that Ye would frequently tell people they had “messed around.”
Pisciotta’s suit also mentions Ye’s wife, Bianca Censori, who was an employee at Yeezy when Pisciotta worked there, and who Pisciotta claims was a frequent guest and coordinator of Ye’s orgy-style “sex parties.” Pisciotta also claims Ye would text her about Censori, quoting one message where he wrote, “I feel like Bianca came to L.A. to fuck as many people as possible and break up marriages and turn other girls to hoes.” At one point, Ye allegedly showed Pisciotta a screenshot of his text conversation with Censori, where he had written to Censori, “I wanna fuck your mom before she leaves.”
Pisciotta has also accused Ye of sexual assault.
In July 2021, Pisciotta says, she was part of a team working on Ye’s studio album DONDA in San Francisco when he suddenly started pounding on the door of her hotel room at 6 a.m. Per her suit, after telling her his shower wasn’t working, he used hers, and proceeded to “forcefully thrust his naked body onto and penis into” her face. After a few short minutes during which she pleaded with him to stop, he allegedly got off the bed, said “sorry,” and left the room.
Pisciotta describes another instance — she doesn’t specify when — where she and a “former artist management client” allegedly went to a studio session in Santa Monica hosted by Ye and Sean “Diddy” Combs. (Combs, who counted Ye as one of his many celebrity friends, was recently arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges.) Based on Pisciotta’s account, everybody was told to have a drink if they wanted to stay, and after a few sips, she started to feel “disoriented” and in an “altered and heavily impaired state.” After waking up the next morning feeling “physically ill and confused,” the suit states, she realized she didn’t remember anything that had happened the night before and felt so embarrassed that she wrote the whole incident off, assuming the studio assistant had drugged her. “Years later,” the suit says, after she was promoted to chief of staff, Ye referred to this night in a casual conversation with her, saying, “We did kind of hook up a little one time.” When she told him she didn’t remember what happened, she claims he laughed and said, “‘Women love to say they don’t remember.”
Pisciotta also accused Ye of harassing her for filing her original lawsuit.
Pisciotta wrote in her amended suit that she started getting harassed “almost immediately” after filing her June complaint. She describes someone making false emergency calls to summon police, firefighters, and Child Protective Services to her apartment, and ordering food and other local services to her apartment under the name Eric West. Her suit demands a trial by jury.
The Cut has attempted to reach out to Kanye West’s legal representation for comment and will update this post if we hear back.
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