“Incessant harassment, humiliation, and attempts to both mentally control, and destroy”

Warning: This article contains discussion of racial discrimination, discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community, anti-semitic views and abuse which some readers may find distressing.

A former Yeezy employee has accused Kanye West of verbal abuse and threatening ‘physical violence’ among other claims.

On Tuesday (2 April), Trevor Phillips filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles against the rapper.

Phillips’ claims against Kanye West – who now goes by Ye – follow another lawsuit against the artist made by two former Donda Academy employees.

The lawsuit – obtained by Rolling Stone and filed by Shegerian & Associates – states Phillips was employed by Ye in November 2022 to work for fashion brand Yeezy shortly after Adidas terminated its deal with the rapper when he posted anti-semitic statements on social media.

Phillips – who is Black – claims as soon as he started working under Ye it was clear the rapper ‘treated the Black staff considerably worse than white employees’, such as ‘scream[ing] and berat[ing] Black employees, while never even as much raising his tone at the white staff’.

The former employee also claims Ye continued to make comments of a similar nature to those which saw him dropped by Adidas, as well as threatening to go after the LGBTQ community ‘next’.

Getty Images/ Adidas/ Jonathan Leibson

Phillips alleges Ye’s remarks and behavior occurred in front of pupils at the Donda Academy – an unaccredited Christian private school for pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade named after the rapper’s late mother – which has since been closed, too.

And not only that, but Phillips claims Ye even ‘spread antisemitism’ in school meetings and in front of students, and told two children he ‘intended to put a jail at the school’ threatening to ‘lock’ pupils ‘in cages’ and saying he wanted to ‘shave their heads’.

Phillips says he tried to stand up to Ye but the rapper ‘responded mercilessly, with incessant harassment, humiliation, and attempts to both mentally control, and destroy, Phillips’.

The lawsuit continues: “Kanye’s ill-will towards the plaintiff ultimately culminated in a vulgar lashing in front of schoolchildren and their parents. Kanye even threatened Phillips with physical violence.”

Getty Images/ Mel Melcon/ Los Angeles Times

One incident is reported as having occurred at Nobu Hotel in Malibu in December 2022, Phillips alleging he was called to a meeting with Ye to discuss plans for the business, which ended up taking three hours.

During the meeting, Phillips alleges Ye said ‘gay people are not true Christians,’ spoke in admiration about Hitler and said the Holocaust was fake. Not before allegedly putting The Batman movie on mute and during the film making ‘slow up and down motions with his hand just above his genitals as though he was masturbating’.

Ye is also stated in the lawsuit as allegedly banning any employees from putting on too much weight or they’d be fired, saying he ‘only likes to date white women’ and showing Yeezy staff members ‘nude pictures’ of a unnamed woman he FaceTimed during his meeting with Phillips at Nobu Hotel.

The former Yeezy employee also claims he was promised $100-an-hour but received much less and sometimes the payments were also late.

In May 2023, Phillips says Ye fired him by screaming, ‘get the f**k out of here’ and ‘physically threatened’ him. He says Ye then ‘imitat[ed] the celebratory dance of Mario from the famous video game Super Mario Brothers’ and ‘jumped p with punching one in the air’, and said he’d give the employee ‘another chance’ and ‘another life’.

However, the next day, Phillips says he was fired again but allowed to continue work until August 2023.

Phillips has since brought multiple actions against the rapper, which include the allegations Ye discriminated against him on the basis of race, fostered a hostile workplace and retaliated against him for being a whistleblower.

The former Yeezy employee is now seeking $35,000 in damages.