Kanye West Ex-Assistant Lauren Pisciotta Sues For Sexual Harassment

Topline

Lauren Pisciotta, once an assistant to former billionaire Kanye West, sued the rapper Monday for sexual harassment, breach of contract and wrongful termination, alleging West masturbated while on phone calls with her and failed to pay her a $3 million severance package after abruptly firing her.

Kanye West’s former assistant sued the rapper, alleging sexual harassment, breach of contract and … [+] wrongful termination. (Photo by Scott Dudelson/Getty Images)

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Key Facts

Pisciotta reportedly said she had worked on a Yeezy fashion line and West’s 2021 album “Donda” before being hired as a personal assistant later that year, working for a salary of $1 million to be available “24/7” to the rapper.

The former assistant alleged West would send her explicit text messages and photographs, a video of himself having sex with a model and instructed her to deliver him a sexual performance enhancement “honey” before his sexual encounters.

She alleged West would call her, ostensibly to discuss work matters, but would masturbate while on the phone and, in one instance, masturbated in front of her while the two were enclosed in a room that could not be opened from the inside.

Prior to working for West, Pisciotta supported herself through an OnlyFans account, which reportedly earned her $1 million annually, though West instructed her to delete the account in exchange for $1 million so she could become more “God like.”

Pisciotta said she was abruptly fired in October 2022, just one month after being promoted to chief of staff for his companies, and never received a promised $3 million severance package.

Forbes has reached out to West’s representatives for comment.

Key Background

Multiple Yeezy staffers previously accused West of showing them pornographic material and making other inappropriate, often sexualizing, remarks, according to a November 2022 Rolling Stone report. West has also previously claimed to have a porn addiction, and he stated in a now-deleted Instagram post in September 2022 that the addiction “destroyed” his family. Amid his controversial run at Yeezy, West lost his billionaire status after making numerous comments that were widely criticized as antisemitic, causing Adidas to drop their partnership with the rapper in October 2022. The partnership made up most of West’s net worth, which was once estimated by Forbes to be about $2 billion, but is now estimated at $400 million based on his music, real estate and a 5% stake in ex-wife Kim Kardashian’s Skims business.

Tangent

West has publicly fallen out with other staffers in recent months, including the former Yeezy chief of staff and right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos. The two clashed last month over West’s intention to launch “Yeezy Porn,” a pornographic film division at his company, Rolling Stone reported. Yiannopoulos reportedly told West in an email that he could not be “complicit in the production of dissemination of pornographic films and literature, for moral and religious reasons,” adding that pornography poses an “imminent danger to my life as a recovering addict and an unacceptable risk to my spiritual and physical health as a former homosexual.” West also announced on his Instagram story in March that he had fired YesJulz, whose real name is Julieanna Goddard, a marketer who had worked on the rollout for his album “Vultures 1” over allegedly unauthorized social media posts she had made. Goddard responded in a series of X posts, stating “f— an NDA,” and she posted screenshots of texts with Yiannopoulos that show the former chief of staff making disparaging remarks about West’s fans.