Kanye West has been accused of sexual battery and sex trafficking in a new amended complaint filed by his former assistant.
Lauren Pisciotta, who started working for West (aka Ye) in 2021 as an A&R during the making of his album “Donda” and eventually became his personal assistant, previously sued the rapper for wrongful termination and sexual harassment in June 2024. Now, in a second amended complaint obtained by Variety, she has alleged that West “orally raped her without her consent” and coerced her into complying with his sexual demands by making false promises about the advancement of her career.
Representatives for West did not immediately respond to Variety‘s request for comment. At the time of Pisciotta’s original lawsuit, West’s lawyer put out a statement calling those accusations “baseless” and saying there were plans to countersue.
The full list of accusations Pisciotta makes in the updated complaint includes hostile work environment — sexual harassment; assault; battery; sexual battery; sex trafficking; failure to prevent harassment, discrimination and retaliation; gender discrimination; stalking; false imprisonment; promissory estoppel; and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
“Ye subjected Ms. Pisciotta to obscene comments about her body, demanded she wear tight fitting clothing, groped her on a regular basis, forced her to watch Ye perform sexual acts with other women, sent her sexually explicit pictures and demanded she do the same and repeatedly demanded that she join his sexual encounters, which she refused,” the complaint alleges. “On one occasion, Ye attempted to vaginally penetrate Ms. Pisciotta with his fingers. On another occasion, he orally raped her without her consent. Both assaults occurred during the course of Ms. Pisciotta’s employment.”
Pisciotta also alleges that West “offered someone the opportunity” to have sex with her in exchange for allowing him to have sex with their significant other. The lawsuit notes that West allegedly “notoriously offered women as sexual ‘gifts’ to men.”
The complaint alleges that sex trafficking occurred because West “recruited and enticed Plaintiff by making fraudulent promises of career advancement in exchange for Plaintiff’s acquiescence to Ye’s sexual contact, and used force and coercion to obtain compliance with his sexual demands by engendering a fear that refusing Ye’s desires would be met with serious consequences such as public humiliation, online harassment, termination, retaliation and violence.”
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Pisciotta’s lawyers allege that after Pisciotta continued to refuse West’s sexual advances, he terminated her employment in the fall of 2023. However, even after she was fired, the complaint alleges that West moved into her same apartment complex and, on one occasion, “forcibly grabbed Ms. Pisciotta by the throat.” After she moved to Florida “to escape him,” the complaint alleges that West harassed Pisciotta by “falsely reporting nonexistent emergencies and incidents, as well as requesting bogus services and deliveries to her residence.”
She claims that this alleged harassment worsened after her original lawsuit was filed in June 2024, escalating to a practice called “swatting.” This included “reports of child abuse and murder” and Pisciotta was “not able to predict when and if law enforcement agencies would show up to her residence under the pretense of a false emergency,” the complaint states.
Pisciotta is demanding a trial by jury to seek general, economic and punitive damages, including past and future lost earnings.
West’s career has been in a tailspin since 2022, when he made a string of antisemitic comments that resulted in the dissolution of his working relationships with Gap, Universal Music Group, CAA, Adidas, Balenciaga and more. Earlier this year, he purchased a local Super Bowl ad that directed viewers to his website, where he was selling a T-shirt with a swastika on it. He has also publicly defended Sean “Diddy” Combs during his recent trial, even showing up briefly to the courthouse in support.
From Variety US