Ye testifies in court in $1M lawsuit filed by former worker
Ye testified Friday in a $1 million lawsuit filed by a former worker, who said he worked on renovations for Ye's Malibu home.
The rapper, formerly known as Kanye West, took the stand in a Los Angeles courtroom and answered questions related to the lawsuit filed by Tony Saxon.
Saxon claims in his lawsuit filed in September 2023 that he was hired by the rapper in September 2021, but says he was wrongfully terminated two months later.
The complaint filed by Saxon alleges Ye hired Saxon as a project manager, whose roles included being full-time security and a live-in caretaker for the property. He alleges that responsibilities also included 16-hour day labor, which included construction and demolition work, coordinating workers, hiring contractors and 24/7 security of the property.
In the time that Saxon worked for Ye, he claims that Ye did not pay him everything he was owed for the work he did and faced dangerous working conditions.
Additionally, in his lawsuit, Saxon claims that as live-in caretaker, he was sleeping in "makeshift conditions, finding empty spaces on the ground and using his coat as a makeshift bedding," according to the suit. He alleges that some of the sleeping arrangements were also near open insulation.
Ye responded to Saxon's suit in 2023 and denied the allegations.
In court on Friday, Ye testified that he had no memory of meeting Saxon and only a vague memory of hiring him.
When asked about Saxon allegedly living at the property, Ye said that he didn't know that Saxon was living there.
"There's no shower, no toilet," Ye said. "I didn't know it was possible for someone to live in a house like that with no toilet or shower."
Saxon's attorneys also played a deposition video where Ye was asked if he disputed that he would have fired Saxon. Ye replied "no" in the deposition video.
Ye, who appeared to be falling asleep during questioning, said that he didn't know how much he had to pay Saxon.
Ye's testimony comes after his wife, Bianca Censori, testified in court on Thursday. The model faced questioning by Saxon's lawyer, who asked her about her role in the project and what she knew about Saxon's role.
Censori said that she heard that Saxon would be removing windows, chimney and garage doors. In her cross examination, she also shared that she and Ye at the time were looking for someone to help with demolition, cabinetry, tiles and more.
Saxon's attorney also showed her text message exchanges with Saxon, in which it appeared that she was made aware of Saxon living on the property when he told her that he couldn't live there anymore after they had "decimated the shower."
"I didn't know what was fully going on," Censori said in court. "I thought he was just venting to me."
She added that she didn't know that he got fired until he told her over a phone call, but Censori said it wasn't "unusual" since there were "so many people" at the home at the time.
According to Realtor.com, Ye bought the Malibu beach house in 2021 for $57.3 million after his divorce from ex-wife Kim Kardashian. The home was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando.
After gutting the home, he put it back on the market in January 2024. Realtor.com reports that the home had no windows, no electric, no plumbing and no interior finishes after Ye's renovations.
Developer Steven "Bo" Belmont purchased the property days after Ye put the home up for sale. Belmont vowed that he would restore the home back to Ando's design.
ABC News' Julie Sone contributed to this report.
