Kanye West’s ex-assistant 'has gone into hiding' after filing sexual assault claims

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0:08Hello, Greg Jenner here. I'm the host of You're Dead to Me, the BBC comedy show that takes history seriously. Every episode I pair up a top historian with a fantastic comedian and we have a lovely, funny, fascinating chat about a different subject from world history. And in this new series we're beginning with an epic voyage through the story of Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey. and that's with Kyle Smith-Bino joining us and then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Birch We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parrott So if that sounds like your sort of thing listen to You're Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts Thank you, bye!

0:57Shaun Kent:Hello and welcome to Fame Under Fire from BBC Sounds with me, Anushka Matandadauti. For those of you who have been with us since Diddy on Trial, welcome back. And to our listeners who are dipping in a toe and seeing if they like it, this is the place to come for a facts-first approach to the topics dominating our timelines. When celebrities, sports stars, politicians, influencers and royalty find themselves in the firing line, Whether it's a lawsuit or a scandal, we are going to pre-bunk, debunk, fact check, myth bust, interrogate and of course answer your questions. You can send them to me on social media or WhatsApp at 0330 678 1114.

1:36Shaun Kent:That's 0330 678 1114.

1:42Shaun Kent:Now just a warning before we get into things, this episode contains descriptions of rape and sexual assault. Coming up today, allegations of sex trafficking, sexual battery, rape and false imprisonment. I'm not talking about Diddy, but another legendary rapper. He calls himself a walking me too. He says I'm a big time perv. He talks about how he likes to sleep with his employees in his office. Nicki Minaj beefing people on X. I love hip hop music and I love pop music and I don't want to be forced to choose. And you're saying, Anushka, what's new? It's her and somebody every week. but the latest spat with Scissor reveals some really interesting facts about the music industry and perhaps your favourite artist isn't as big as you think they are.

2:24Shaun Kent:And lastly, we brought you the results of the Diddy trial from the courtroom three weeks ago. Diddy kept his head down while the verdict was being read out, but after it was done he dropped to his knees and started praying, hands on the chair in front of him with his head down while his lawyers congratulated him and hugged each other. Gosh, you can hear how stressed I was in that clip. But today we will be updating you on the sentencing and the prosecution's latest tactics. portraying Cassie and Jane as co-conspirators. What on earth is going on there? Joining me today from the U.S. is our resident criminal defense attorney and my mom's favorite American, Sean Kent from South Carolina.

2:57Shaun Kent:Hi, Sean. Hey, Nerska. How are you doing? I'm doing good, thank you. And crisis PR manager Molly McPherson joining from just north of Boston. Hi, Molly. Hello. I hope someday I can be one of your mom's favorites as well. Oh, I'm sure she's got space for two. Now, the first thing I want to talk about today kind of came out of being in New York doing the Diddy trial. You get to know the lawyers that are around. You sit next to them in the courtroom. You meet them outside in the lines. And one person I chatted to a lot was Eric Fadali from the Lisa Bloom law firm. He was representing Dawn Rashad and another one of Diddy's accusers.

3:31Shaun Kent:And he brought to my attention another rapper who has just been hit with an amended lawsuit accusing him of assault, battery, sexual battery, sex trafficking, stalking and false imprisonment. But little did I know that very rapper was actually going to turn up at the Diddy trial. Around mid-morning after the first witness got off the stand, there was a break. And all of a sudden there was a flurry of reporters running up and downstairs from the main courtroom to the overflow rooms. There was rumors that Kanye or Ye was spotted coming into the building. Those were later confirmed. There's photos and videos of him arriving.

3:59Shaun Kent:Lots of reporters saw him. That was Isabella Gomez-Sarmiento from NPR reporting on Kanye or Ye's fleeting appearance at the Sean Diddy Combs trial. Now, there are a number of additional allegations in this updated lawsuit filed by Lauren Pichota, Kanye's former chief of staff. Before we get into those, we did ask Ye's representatives and lawyers for a response, but haven't heard back yet. His company Yeezy did send this statement to USA Today. Lauren Pichota's amended complaint is the fourth version she has advanced. Each new revision contradicts the other. Each is more absurd and outlandish than all previous claims combined.

4:36Shaun Kent:Does Miss Pichota actually believe her confabulations? We cannot know. But this breathless new installment of fantasy fiction discredits all past, present and future testimony. The spokesperson added, the courts are no place to indulge delusions and mental disturbances. We stand ready to annihilate Miss Pichota's tall tales before a jury and exoneration so inevitable that even she lost in her fog of fantasy must surely see it coming. Yeah, so we've got some strong words from his reps there. I just want to say what's alleged in this lawsuit contains some really graphic descriptions of rape and sexual assault.

5:07Shaun Kent:We have an allegation of oral rape that Lauren says she suffered at the hands of Kanye during the recording of his Donda album. She alleges that he repeatedly had sex with Yeezy staff members and would record it, literally taking people into the bathroom in the offices and then sending said recordings around to the rest of the office and to Lauren herself. She said she was frequently exposed to acts of anti-Semitism, forcing staff members to draw swastikas and interrogating staff members. he suspected were Jewish. After firing her, she says he moved into her building. She then says after she filed her first complaint on June 3rd, six days later, swatting began.

5:49Shaun Kent:Now, if you're not familiar with the term, this is when you call local law enforcement and you allege some really horrific crimes going on, kidnap, child sexual abuse. You say it's happening in this house. There is obviously an immediate and very strong response from law enforcement agencies, including homes being raided. She says this has happened to her multiple times in the place where she's been living, and she suspects that it is at the direction of Kanye. Molly, I want to get your initial reaction to hearing that. Yeah, well, Kanye's notoriety is certainly a part of the brand and similar to Sean Combs.

6:22So it's not a surprise that when there's one legal action against one, you know, famous, you know, titan in that industry, that a legal outfit would find a way to have it happen with Kanye as well. It fits the pattern. But also in terms of this notoriety, it goes both ways. You know, it can help you sell albums. It can help you with your influence. But these legal stories have a way of sticking, certainly because they're followed by the news and they're followed by the public. So it will be interesting to see what happens.

6:52Shaun Kent:And Sean, I know reading sort of horrific allegations is somewhat your bread and butter. But hearing that, what was the initial reaction? I'm old enough to remember that when lawsuits were filed, they were not filed so salacious as they are now. because now they're all reading like tabloid journalism. Been doing this 25 years before we just used to have, and we were taught in law school, when you make a lawsuit, you make it very generic. You don't come out as specific as these lawsuits are. So when I'm reading these now, it's almost like the lawsuits are written for public opinion, knowing that people are going to be reading them.

7:24Specifically, even when you were, and this is more Molly's bread and butter, when I heard the statement back from Kanye, you never used to hear these, we're going to destroy you. You never heard these types of things or just very generalization. So when I read that lawsuit and when I read at the beginning of it, it read like the intro to a movie. Kanye is a misogynist. Kanye is a racist. Kanye is a bad person. You never saw that stuff before in the introductory paragraph to a lawsuit. So to me, it wasn't that I was surprised. I was more surprised on how much that lawsuit was written for other people to read it that aren't court personnel.

7:59Shaun Kent:As I said, I spoke to Lauren's lawyer when I was in New York and he fleshed out more of the detail of this lawsuit. It's a lot of what Mr. West or Yeh has tweeted and has admitted. Pretty remarkably shocking, actually. I've represented a lot of alleged victims against very high profile individuals with large platforms. I had never in my life, or at least in my career, ever seen a defendant sort of tweet out admissions to the allegations. So for instance, you know, he says he used to expletive F word his employees in his office. He actually said that, and that's sort of part of our, you know, the allegations by Ms.

8:33Fashoda. He said that employee keyword hits different. I need the whole office expletive proof. I mean, really sort of graphic admissions. He calls himself a walking me too. He says I'm a big time perv. He talks about how he likes to sleep with his employees in his office. If a CEO don't hug you inappropriately, he's a expletive for homosexual. I mean, just really sort of jarring admissions that really mirror the allegations of Ms. Pashoda. He describes these inappropriate hugs he liked to do with his employees, or he would press himself inappropriately against that without their consent. You know, these are all admissions by Mr.

9:10West, public admissions on his ex-profile that really mirror a lot of the allegations that Ms. Pashoda has made. So again, we're sort of in a situation where I really look forward to taking Mr. West's dip of deposition and to confront him with these admissions that really sort of echo what's been alleged by Vaneska Shoka.

9:26Shaun Kent:And he speaks about, she alleges that he sent messages and those tweets you just read, he mentions it there as well, having sex with employees and the office being somewhere where he would have sexual or intimate encounters. Has Lauren spoken on what it was like to work there and what the culture was like? Well, I mean, I can tell you that she no longer works there. You know, not only does she not work there, but the aftermath of working for Mr. West, working for Ye, and bringing a lawsuit against Mr. West has caused her to hide it. She is, and I'm not overstating it. She is literally, I'm not allowed to disclose where she lives.

10:01She is literally in hiding, afraid, scared, and has basically, you know, deleted pretty much her entire internet presence and has just sort of sitting around in hiding, hoping, you know, letting this lawsuit play out. It's really sad. And, you know, certainly she's gone through a lot. She is suffering and has been suffering since she began working for his choice.

10:20Shaun Kent:That was Arik Fadali from the Bloom Law Firm telling me more about that lawsuit. Molly, the accusations are extremely serious, but the online reaction kind of now with everything Ye does is, well, it's Kanye. What do you expect? Has he, in a way, built the perfect defense against any wrongdoing by saying and doing the unthinkable? What's interesting about the response, and Sean pointed this out, you know, that was a legal response that was written for the public and not just for public consumption, but for public swaying as well with influence. What's interesting is that Kanye's brand of notoriety is always to be kind of off brand, to be outrageous, to say the outrageous things.

11:04He always pushes the envelope. But this is a statement for the first time where I feel that Kanye is worried, that Kanye is worried about the charges. significantly the timing of it, you know, coming after Sean Combs, that to have that legal rebuke, you know, in this statement right off bat goes against his traditional brand. So it tells me that they are worried there, but his influence is about the outrageous. So now for him to be the appalled person and to attack also the accuser, which is typical from a legal playbook that happens all the time, but that's new for Kanye. And that's what I find interesting.

11:44Shaun Kent:From this as well, there's some really interesting legal questions, Sean. Kanye has said he was bipolar, diagnosed in 2016 after suffering a mental health crisis. Then he said he was misdiagnosed and he's actually autistic. He's faced a backlash over a series of chaotic interviews and severely anti-Semitic social media posts. He's also tweeted that he was molested by his cousin when he was a child, that his children are being sex trafficked by his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian, and he used a slur to refer to Jay-Z and Beyonce's very young son. Sean, is there a legal route for saying my client can't be held responsible for their actions?

12:22Shaun Kent:And if so, could we end up seeing some of these tweets introduced as evidence of that in this court of law? So that's a two part question. To answer your first part, simply no. Mental intent, sanity, competency, those are criminal elements. So if he was facing criminal charges, somebody literally could say Kanye West could not form the mens rea, if you will, the intent to be criminally responsible for his actions. That's what he could be making the argument for in a criminal parlance. You can tell a court, you can tell a jury. I could not form the necessary intent. Look at my tweets. Look at me.

13:04I'm nutty. Look at the crazy stuff that I've done. That does not save you from a civil lawsuit. Civilly, he could be soon. Whether you are insane, whether you are competent, does not change the fact that you've actually done something. As far as the tweets, the tweets will be used in the civil court, not, and that's why the second part of your question, not to show his level of sanity, but to show his level of culpability. So I think those tweets will be used. I think he'll be sitting for a deposition. during his deposition, the civil side will have the right to say, you tweeted this, you tweeted this, you tweeted this, you tweeted this.

13:41And he can sit in that deposition all he wants. He could be sitting in a chicken suit. He could be eating, sucking on lollipops, playing in his nose, looking nutty as he wants to. But in the civil parlance, that will be used against him in the deposition just so that he is civilly responsible for what the plaintiff is saying.

14:00Shaun Kent:That's really interesting. And also we have heard from Kanye how much he enjoys being deposed and says it's the only time he gets to truly be himself. Molly, I can see you nodding there. I mean, yes, I saw the clip. You know, certainly that is that is part of his brand, you know, and he laughs about it, you know, but now it's this is a serious matter for him. So that's why I think we're seeing shifts in his perception management and reputation management around this case. The thing that people don't understand, we always say this statement, we always say that criminal charges are harder to prove.

14:34which they are, than civil cases. If you look throughout history, which people don't actually ever talk about, what takes down powerful men, powerful women, powerful people are their own depositions. If you watch the Bill Cosby deposition, if you watch the O.J. Simpson deposition, because these depositions, when you're allowed to ask all these questions and you do not have the right to say, I plead the fifth, I'm not answering that. That's what takes people down. Now, Kanye sitting for a deposition is his lawyer's worst nightmare. Period.

15:09Shaun Kent:And Arik has made very clear to me that he is looking forward to putting a lot of those tweets and a lot of the statements that Kanye has made to him in that deposition, which is happening in August. And we will follow and, of course, keep you updated. Just a reminder, though, Kanye West's representatives have strongly denied all these allegations.

15:31Hello, Greg Jenner here. I'm the host of You're Dead to Me, the BBC comedy show that takes history seriously. Every episode, I pair up a top historian with a fantastic comedian, and we have a lovely, funny, fascinating chat about a different subject from world history. And in this new series, we're beginning with an epic voyage through the story of Homer, the Iliad, and the Odyssey. And that's with Kyle Smith-Bino joining us. And then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist, discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Birch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parrott.

16:04So if that sounds like your sort of thing, listen to You're Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Bye.

16:18Shaun Kent:Still to come on Fame Under Fire, we'll be bringing you the latest developments ahead of the Diddy sentencing. But first, on X, these two artists have been going back and forth. I want to do music that I love to do and it makes me happy. And my diehard fans have really understood me and they've held me down. And that's all I can hope for. My voice is just what it is. I think in my most natural, when I'm not thinking, I sing from my tummy and I'm loud as hell. That is the hugely successful female, I mean, queen of rap, Nicki Minaj. And SZA, who is leading the game in R &B, who have been rowing on social media.

16:54Shaun Kent:But it brings up some really interesting but perhaps little known facts about the music industry. But before that, Molly, Nicki Minaj. Oh, Nicki. In the past, what should I say, five to seven years? She, who hasn't she got at? I remember when she was beefing with Boris Johnson. I mean, she's not afraid to get into rows on social media. Absolutely, because social media will turn any disagreement into a spectacle. And social media loves a spectacle. You know, particularly if there's any type of beef. I mean, it's just something that brings the algorithm in. So not only does social media platforms like beefs, but artists can like them as well, because it's not just about influence sometimes.

17:37It's just, you know, reputation and what draws people in. And that makes you kind of a bigger artist, increasing your visibility.

17:44Shaun Kent:And Nikki said all sorts on Twitter, the COVID vaccine enlarges your ball sack. Not true. But when it comes to SZA, in between referring to her as a yodeling fool who needs auto-tune and SZA saying she has declined two previous requests to collab with Minaj, some interesting assertions were made about who is a bigger artist, especially when it comes to filling out an arena. And it's interesting when you start to get into these distinctions, because a lot of the time with Nikki and SZA, who are both really, really at the forefront of the game, it's, well, I've got this many millions of streams and I've got this many monthly listeners on Spotify.

18:21Shaun Kent:But the assertions Nikki was making is I can fill an arena tour and you can't. But both of them have really huge online fan bases. And Nikki's fans are known as the Barbs, a part of a group of Barb Nation. They're renowned for their protection of her. Literally everything. I love being a Barb. Being a Barb is amazing. Nicki Minaj is my idol. Nicki's been doing her stuff for years. She don't give a F. She's always, you know, out there setting trends. And you got to have a level of don't give a F to get to where you're at. So Molly, we can hear from that clip on much music. Being a Bob is a different level of fandom, isn't it?

18:53Shaun Kent:It's another level. Taylor Swift, the Swifties. There's a distinction there. Oh, absolutely. And what she has is coveted, not only in music, but in politics as well. And that's a base. The base does the work for you. The base is going to lift you up. The base is going to give you visibility. The base is also going to buy tickets. So that is clutch to have in any type of industry because a base also means mobilization. So no matter what you have to do, if it's downloading a new song, if it's buying tickets, if it's standing up and fighting for you, it's really hard to go after the base. And people do get intimidated by that.

19:29Even journalists do. They don't want to go against an artist if there's a base behind it. So that's a smart move for any artist.

19:37Shaun Kent:Yeah, absolutely. And the barbs maybe next to the beehive are up there as some of the most ferocious. And Molly, what you were saying there about the bass, that becomes really relevant when you start to look at pure sales. So pure album sales are when a consumer actually buys the album, old school style. Album equivalent sales is when one album is streamed enough times that it counts as a pure sale. So let's look. Let's do some comparisons at Nicki's last project, Pink Friday 2, and SZA's last album, SOS. These are the figures from Billboard. Pink Friday 2 got 92 ,000 pure sales, so the barbs, they mobilized.

20:13Shaun Kent:Whereas SOS got 7 ,500 pure sales. When it comes to album equivalent sales, Pink Friday 2 got 228 ,000. But SOS got 318 ,000. So overall, SZA got more. But the thing with album equivalent numbers is they're not that straightforward. Pure sales are more of an indication of a fan base and their commitment to the artist, which then directly relates to ticket sales and filling those arenas. But when it comes to album equivalent sales, if your song gets added to a popular playlist like Rap Caviar on Spotify, that contributes to your streams. Doesn't necessarily mean everyone who's listening to that playlist loves your music.