Civil trial over wages for remodel of Kanye West’s house begins in LA

LOS ANGELES (CN) — A civil trial between Kanye West and a worker once hired to oversee the gutting of seaside house in Malibu got underway in LA Superior Court Tuesday with opening statements.

Tony Saxon claims he worked for the Grammy-winning hip-hop mogul for about seven weeks, and that West owes him more than $1 million in unpaid wages and expenses. He says he was hired to be a project manager of sorts, to supervise the demolition and remodel of a house bought by West, who now goes by Ye, for $57 million.

Saxon's attorney, Ron Zambrano, told the jury in his opening statement that Ye wanted "an off-the-grid" shelter. Though the house was designed by renowned Japanese architect Tadao Ando in a minimalist style, Ye wanted it even more minimalist. He wanted everything removed: the jacuzzi, the fireplaces, the windows, the chimneys, the plumbing, the electricity, even the toilets, according to Zambrano. He also wanted the job done quickly and without permits, Zambrano said.

"Ye would change plans," Zambrano said. As part of his "evolving creative vision," Ye, at one point, ordered Saxon to "convert the steps into a slide," Saxon claims.

Saxon says that he basically lived at the work site, spending his nights in a sleeping bag on the concrete floors of what is being called the "Ando house." He says he was promised $20,000 a week, and though he did receive around $260,000, much of that went to pay for materials and other workers. He also claims he hurt his back on the job, and, at one point, Ye had him work in a Downtown LA warehouse to prepare for "Sunday Service," a sort of quasi-church service run by Ye.

"He was his employee," Zambrano said — an important distinction, since full-time employees are entitled to more workplace protections than independent contractors.

In his opening, Ye's attorney, Andrew Cherkasky, told the jury that Saxon was an independent contractor, and an unlicensed one at that, who had told Ye he was licensed. Saxon, said Cherkasky, "was paid $240,000" for six weeks of work, "and he destroyed the Ando house."

"There is not a single indication that he was an employee," Cherkasky said. "It was what every remodeler or construction worker does — bring your own tools, your own guys."

Cherkasky said that it was Saxon, on his own, who took it upon himself to sleep at the Ando house, that he "made promises he couldn't fulfill," and that his "energy for the job had dropped." Cherkasky said that Saxon himself quit the job, as Saxon would later tell a psychiatrist. There was no unpaid invoice, at the time, the lawyer claimed.

"For two years, he never claimed he was owned anything," Cherkasky said, until 2023, when a "lawsuit suddenly came out."

Both Ye and Saxon claim to be bipolar, a condition which "can lead to regrettable behavior," according to Cherkasky — a statement he meant to apply to Saxon, but could of course well apply to his own client as well, who is famous for making outrageous statements, many relating to Adolf Hitler, which he recently apologized for in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.

The civil jury trial is expected to last just over two weeks, with Judge Brock Hammond presiding. The plaintiffs have said they will call as adverse witnesses both Ye and his wife, Bianca Censori, herself an Australian architect who was once tasked with remodeling the Ando house prior to the couple's marriage. Ye was not present in the court on Tuesday. In his stead was Milo Yiannopoulos, who serves as spokesman for Yeezy, Ye's company, which is also named as a defendant.

Yiannopoulos, a British-born right-wing commentator as controversial as Ye, read a statement to reporters outside the courtroom.

"The truth is that Tony was overpaid and underqualified and should have quit while he was ahead," Yiannopoulos said. "He should have taken the quarter of a million dollars he was paid for six weeks' work and run. For a while, he did for two years, in fact, until a law firm got involved. And now we are here trying to figure out if anything that Tony Saxon has ever said is true."

Zambrano said that Saxon's story would be corroborated by "94 pages" of text messages sent back and forth between Saxon and Ye over the course of four weeks, as well as "52 pages" of texts between his client and Censori.

Last year, Zambrano represented an unnamed woman suing a different rapper, Soulja Boy, for sexual assault as well as various workplace violations. The woman's employment status was a big issue in that trial, too — there was little evidence that she was a full-time employee, or even an employee at all. But the jury found that she was treated as one, and awarded her $4.25 million.

Saxon's is the first of more than a dozen employment-related lawsuits filed against Ye, some filed by the firm Zambrano works at, West Coast Trial Lawyers. This trial could serve as a de facto bellwether — a big judgment may convince Ye to settle the other cases.

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