Kanye West, now known as Ye, was found liable by a jury on Wednesday after a two-week trial based on a complaint filed by a man who said of being seriously injured and wrongfully fired during the controversial renovation work on Ye’s $57 million Malibu mansion in 2021.
The plaintiff, Tony Saxon, had demanded $1.7 million in damages. However, the jury only awarded him $140,000, with no additional punitive damages.
As a witness, Saxon testified that Ye hired him as project manager and around-the-clock security guard for the modern concrete beach house designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando. “Stay here now. You can’t leave,” Ye is said to have ordered him – at least according to Saxon’s testimony.
Serious injuries, immediate dismissal
Saxon, 35, said he sustained serious injuries to his neck and back while working on the property and was later fired after asking for workplace relief and refusing to operate gasoline-powered generators indoors. When he warned Ye that the generators posed a carbon monoxide risk, the rapper responded: “If you don’t do what I ask, you’re an enemy. You’re a Clinton. You’re a Kardashian. And I won’t be your friend anymore, and you’ll only see me on TV and the news.” Saxon told jurors that moment was “a very frightening situation.”
In his closing argument Monday, Saxon’s attorney, Ron Zambrano, said under California law, Saxon was hired as a full-time employee, not an independent contractor. Zambrano played an excerpt from Ye’s videotaped statement in which the musician was asked if he denied hiring Saxon as an employee. “No, I don’t deny that,” Ye replied on the video – only to take it back shortly afterwards.
Zambrano said Saxon provided thousands of pages of documentation supporting his claims. Ye’s legal team, however, only released 19 pages as part of the discovery process. “[Saxon] “He kept things that put him in a bad light and presented them to you anyway,” Zambrano said. “Mr. Saxon has been open and transparent with you about everything that can be criticized about him. He was victimized – and he was hurt.”
94 pages of SMS as evidence
Materials presented to jurors included 94 pages of text messages between Saxon and Ye, who bought the home in 2021 for $57 million and ordered it stripped of plumbing, toilets, fixtures, cabinets, electrical fixtures, a concrete fireplace and two custom-made, nine-meter-tall stainless steel fireplaces. Ye later sold the property in September 2024 for $21 million – a bitter loss.
In his counterargument, Ye’s attorney, Andrew Cherkasky, portrayed Saxon as an unreliable witness who fabricated injuries and unpaid wages after he was removed from the project. “The lies are so deep and so vile that you can’t believe a single word that came out of his mouth,” Cherkasky said, calling Saxon a “professional victim.”
Ye’s wife Bianca Censori, an architect from Australia who worked on the Ando house, testified that Ye disliked stairs and windows and preferred “ramps and slides” and was experimenting with using “mesh as a barrier between inside and outside.” She said Saxon claimed to her that he was a licensed contractor – a claim Saxon denies.
Cherkasky praises Ye’s performance in court
Cherkasky also praised Ye for appearing in court and taking the witness stand last week. As ROLLING STONE previously reported, Ye struggled to keep his eyes open. “He answered the questions. He didn’t sleep. And he was bored. That’s beneath him,” Cherkasky said Monday.
In return, Zambrano said Ye barely deserves a “participation award” for his brief appearance. “Who was here the rest of the time? All of them,” he told the jury of seven women and five men on Monday.
Zambrano argued that Ye gutted the Ando home without permits and hired Saxon not as a licensed contractor but to protect discretion. He referred jurors to a group text message from Censori which said: “No planning permission increases caution”, suggesting the team should seek solutions that were “quicker” and raised “fewer red flags”.
Text messages document the back injury
Text messages shown in court appeared to show that Saxon was complaining about a back injury sustained while working. “I hurt my back and am taking it easy,” he wrote in a message to Ye from the time he was working at the end of 2021. In another message to Censori, he wrote: “My back is so fucked up.”
Saxon also asked about a chiropractor who regularly visited Ye’s office warehouse in Los Angeles, and at one point wrote Censori, “I can’t live here anymore,” adding that he had asked Ye to hire new security personnel.
Zambrano said Saxon, a vintage record dealer and performer, described himself to Ye as a “guy with a van” – not a professional contractor. “Tony is not a general contractor. He never was. Everyone knew that,” Zambrano said, arguing Ye’s failure to obtain accident insurance made him liable for Saxon’s injuries.
Contractor or employee?
Cherkasky countered that Saxon’s messages reflected a typical relationship between a homeowner and an independent contractor. “The fact that someone cares about their house is not an invitation for someone to become an employee,” he said.
The jury also heard testimony from Jeromy Holding, a tradesman who supported Saxon’s claim that the project lacked building permits. Holding said the house has been discussed as a possible site for a private school, a bunker, a monastery, a recording studio and a playground with slides and ramps.
Censori disputed the narrative that the project was chaotic, describing Ye’s changing brief as “iterations” of a consistent vision. “Those were all concepts,” she testified. “It should always remain a residential building.”
Wave of civil lawsuits against Ye
Saxon’s lawsuit is the first to reach a jury among a wave of civil suits filed in recent years by people who worked for Ye. The 48-year-old musician has faced more than a dozen lawsuits since a social media outburst in October 2022 when he tweeted his now-infamous plan to declare “death con 3” against Jews. Last year, Ye again posted inflammatory messages on X, formerly Twitter, writing “I AM A NAZI” and “I LOVE HITLER.” A few days later, he placed a Super Bowl commercial for Yeezy.com, where he later sold shirts with swastikas. Last May, he released a single titled “Heil Hitler,” which was quickly removed from most digital streaming services.
In January, he took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal apologizing for the hateful rhetoric. “I am not asking for sympathy or a free pass, even as I strive to earn your forgiveness,” the complaint said. “I am writing today simply to ask for your patience and understanding as I find my way home.”
Ye continues to face a host of other civil lawsuits, although last year he settled lawsuits from a former deputy commissioner and teachers at his failed Christian private school, Donda Academy. Employees had alleged intolerable conditions, including an overflowing putrefaction tank, exposed power lines and the removal of windows because Ye allegedly “didn’t like glass.”
He is trying to have the lawsuit dismissed
His former assistant Lauren Pisciotta sued Ye last year, alleging that he sexually harassed her between 2021 and 2023 and then wrongfully fired her. She accuses him of making obscene comments about her body, telling her to wear tight clothing, groping her, forcing her to watch pornographic material and sending her explicit images. Ye rejects the lawsuit; a hearing date is scheduled for March 23.
In a separate lawsuit, a model who appeared in a 2010 music video with Ye alleges he choked her with both hands, smeared her makeup and then “rammed several fingers down her throat.” According to the lawsuit, Ye told her, “This is art. This is f***ing art. I’m like Picasso.” He is trying to have the lawsuit dismissed.
