Kanye West is facing yet ANOTHER lawsuit over his alleged conduct within the now (temporarily?) shuttered Donda Academy.
On Friday, a man named Benjamin Deshon Provo filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles claiming the rapper “frequently” screamed at him during his employment as a security guard at the school. Provo, a Black man sporting dreadlocks, says Ye berated him over the color of his skin — and even told him he had to cut off his dreads in order to keep his job. WTF!!
Like we mentioned, this is not the first Donda Academy lawsuit coming down the pike. In a prior one, another former employee named Trevor Phillips accused Ye of once threatening to shave Donda students’ heads and lock them in cages. Phillips’ previous suit also alleged that Ye fired a security guard over not cutting off his dreads — but included no other details regarding that claim. Well, now we know all about it, because Provo’s new suit is now part of the record.
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In this new filing, Provo claims he was hired to work as a security guard at Donda Academy beginning in August 2021. However, things turned pear-shaped right away. Provo alleges Ye was incredibly harsh on Black employees while consistently treating white staff members with respect. Per Page Six, which obtained a copy of the lawsuit, Provo claims:
“Kanye and members of his management team subjected Provo and other black employees to less favorable treatment than their white counterparts. Specifically, Kanye frequently screamed at and berated black employees, while in contrast, he never so much as raised his tone of voice toward white staff.”
Specifically, Provo claims the 46-year-old fashion designer “ridiculed” him for wearing his hair in dreads — despite the fact that the former security guard says his hairstyle was chosen specifically as part of his Muslim faith. In the suit, he noted:
“Kanye and members of his management team required Provo to choose between these critical aspects of his self-identity and financial stability. Indeed, at the direction of Kanye, Provo was given the ultimatum, cut his hair or be fired.”
In the end, the guard says he was indeed fired after refusing to cut his hair. He stood on his principles — at the cost of his job.
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That’s not all that Provo apparently went through, though. Before being fired, he claims in the suit, he was forced to engage in physical altercations with paparazzi as part of his job as a security guard. At some point in 2023, Provo claims he was ordered to “prevent paparazzi from interacting with Kanye by any means necessary, including acts of violence.” Yeesh. The suit stated:
“Specifically, plaintiff was required to use physical force to remove paparazzi from the direct vicinity of Kanye and those in his company. … Kanye required that plaintiff snatch cameras from paparazzi, take their sim cards and provide them to Kanye. Notably, this was a practice regularly engaged in by Kanye, who has a documented history of assaulting paparazzi.”
When he was ordered to do that, Provo balked at the alleged demands that he physically confront paparazzi members and “snatch cameras” from them. He even went to his manager, identified in the court docs as a man named John Hicks, with concerns. Per the complaint, Provo told him:
“I don’t want to do this, I could go to jail.”
To which the supervisor allegedly replied:
“We will bail you out.”
Damn!!
In the end, Provo is seeking punitive damages related to discrimination, a hostile work environment, workplace retaliation, and labor code violations. His attorney Carney R. Shegerian released a statement to Page Six about the suit, too:
“[Provo was] at the epicenter of a campaign of discrimination, harassment and retaliation as a result of being an unapologetically black man, and a follower of the Muslim faith. … No matter how famous one is, no one is above the law. We look forward to holding Mr. West accountable for the discrimination alleged in the complaint.”
Wow. It just keeps going, and going, and going… Thoughts, y’all? Sound OFF with your reactions (below).
To learn more about civil rights issues, check out https://www.splcenter.org/.
[Image via Ivan Nikolov/WENN]
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