Last month, Kanye West was sued by former employee Lauren Pisciotta for sexual harassment, breach of contract, wrongful termination, and creating a hostile work environment, just a few months after being sued by former employees of his Donda Academy who claimed discrimination based on race and whistleblower retaliation. They say bad news comes in threes, and just like that, Mr. West has been named in another lawsuit by former employees who want damages for unpaid wages, overtime pay, and emotional distress after they say they were emailed porn by West’s “wife,” Bianca Censori.
According to TMZ, these employees were freelance developers hired to create a new music streaming app for Kanye, so that he could release his albums Vultures 1 and 2 without splitting profits with Apple, Spotify, Tidal, and the rest. Through his former(?) chief of staff Milo Yiannopoulos (who is also named in the suit), Kanye’s company promised $120,000 to the international group, which included “underage teens as young as 14.” However, in addition to not being paid for their work — shocker — the groups says it was subjected to “forced labor and cruel inhuman, or degrading treatment.” Caucasian managers used harassing language to employees, citing age, race, gender, sexual orientation, and national origin; they were referred to as “new slaves,” and bulled into working long hour, resulting in sleep deprivation.
Then, after Kanye announced his short-lived plans to launch a porn company in April, they were tapped to create an app for that, as well. They say Censori emailed hardcore porn to one employee via a file-sharing link accessible to the minors on staff. By May, though, Kanye had seemingly scrapped his plans, and the developers say he stiffed them on the promised pay, despite their delivering at least one completed app. Censori is not named in the suit.
