[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
Model Jennifer An is speaking out about Kanye West allegedly sexually assaulting her on the set of a music video over a decade ago.
Back in 2024, the America’s Next Top Model alum accused the rapper in a lawsuit of gender-motivated violence, sexual assault, and strangulation while filming a video for La Roux‘s In For The Kill at the Chelsea Hotel in New York in 2010. The singer, whose real name is Elly Jackson, witnessed the “upsetting, unsettling” behavior during the shoot. And La Roux backed those allegations, claiming she witnessed and “could never forget” the “horrific” act of aggression toward Jennifer.
Related: Kanye West SUED For Alleged Assault Outside West Hollywood Hotel
Two years later, the model sat down for an on-camera interview with BBC‘s Fame Under Fire podcast on Tuesday, where she got emotional talking about that horrifying day on set. Jennifer said she was hired to appear in the music video for the hit song when she was only 24 years old, and had no idea Ye would be on set the day they shot it. But midway through filming her scene, the crew members suddenly stopped and started “running around the Chelsea Hotel, they’re like, ‘Kanye’s coming, Kanye’s coming.'”
Shortly afterward, all the models “were lined up in the hallway” for Kanye’s arrival, and he “chose three girls to be in the scene with him,” including Jennifer, who was dressed in lingerie. She claims they began filming his section of the music video, but the performer “couldn’t remember his lines,” shouted cut, and ordered the other two models to leave the room to shoot a different scene with her.
According to Jennifer, Kanye had her sit down in a chair in front of him while he positioned himself in a chair behind the camera so he was out of the shot but facing her. The reality star insisted she had no idea what was going to happen next and was given no prior directive about the scene, other than to sit in the chair right then and there. After the music and cameras started, Jennifer alleged:
“All of a sudden he just reaches a hand out and starts choking me, and I’m just not sure what’s happening. And then, he pulled his other hand out and starts choking me with both hands, and then starts smearing my makeup all over my face and sticking his hands inside of my mouth, which I mean it simulated like oral sex.”
Awful…
Jenn then broke down crying while recalling the alleged assault:
“He was smearing the makeup on my face in a way that just felt wrong. He started sticking his fingers into my mouth, and I feel like he was like trying to touch as much as he could.”
When the reporter asked if she could breathe properly while Kanye allegedly had his hands around her throat, the television personality shared that she felt “so suffocated” and “scared” at that moment. In her suit, Jenn claimed she “struggled to breathe and felt as if she had temporarily blacked out.” Despite that, no one allegedly did anything to stop what happened. Jennifer remembers there were a lot of people on the shoot that day, but they “were so still and just there, staring at me” the whole time:
“I just stared at him, ‘Like, what what are you doing? What why are you doing this?’ And then when I got no reaction from him, I just started looking around the room like someone. It was a room full of people. And I was looking around like hoping that someone would see me and be like, ‘Hey, like maybe we should stop.'”
And Jennifer didn’t feel like she could stop the alleged attack herself:
“No, I didn’t because I didn’t know what I was doing… I was more frozen, it’s like ‘I could lose my job.'”
The alleged incident only ended when Kanye was “very happy with himself” and “yelled something like, ‘this is art, I’m Picasso.'” Jennifer continued:
“And shortly after that, he was just like, ‘OK, I got what I want’. But he just abruptly got up and left.”
Jenn claimed Kanye did not speak to her at any point before, during, or after filming. In fact, no one from the set, other than La Roux, spoke to her about the alleged assault that day. The pop star even apologized for what allegedly happened afterward, to which Jennifer said she replied:
“And then I was like, ‘you’re not gonna air that, right? Like, you’re not gonna share that with anyone, because I can’t have my mom see that.’ And she was like, ‘No, of course not, I would never.'”
Kanye ultimately did not end up in the released version of the In For The Kill music video, but he is a featured rapper on the remix of the song. See (below):
Kanye’s rep responded to Jennifer’s interview when TMZ and BBC reached out, but only pointed to a section of the Grammy winner’s legal filings to dismiss the case, in which he does not deny what happened. That said, Ye argued that he should be protected by the First Amendment, which safeguards free speech, because the incident occurred while producing art. Kanye claimed it was part of an “intense and provocative theatrical performance” that paid homage to a scene from American Psycho, and she was “a consenting participant in the stage performance,” never once objecting. WTF. Is it really consent if she never agreed to that “scene” without prior direction or knowledge of what was about to occur??
Jennifer’s attorney, Jesse Winstein, told Fame Under Fire in response that it would be a “really dangerous precedent to set” for any artist to think they are allowed to “basically do whatever they want to, whomever they want in creative spaces, and get away with it as long as they call it art.” Watch the entire emotional interview from Jennifer (below):
Reactions, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual violence and would like to learn more about resources, consider checking out https://www.rainn.org/resources.
[Image via Lia Toby/MEGA/WENN, Fame Under Fire/YouTube]
