Kanye West frequently showed pornography, including his own sex tapes, to Yeezy employees, according to a new report from Rolling Stone lifting the lid on the “disturbingly sexualized atmosphere” at the company.
A number of former Yeezy and adidas staffers and creative collaborators claim the Hip Hop/fashion mogul played porn during meetings, showed sexually explicit content of his then-wife Kim Kardashian and even shared videos of himself engaging in sexual activities with women.
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One “young creative” recalled meeting with Kanye in Chicago in 2018, where the rapper pulled out his phone and showed them a “very revealing” photo of Kardashian. “My wife just sent me this,” West said, according to the creative. He reportedly showed an explicit video of Kardashian to Yeezy team members on at least one other occasion that year.
Before that, in 2013, Kanye West invited a “rising creative” to his home in the Hollywood Hills. Instead of discussing anything work related, however, he allegedly showed the designer “hardcore pornography” on his laptop.
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“He showed me the video of Francesca Le, a buff porn star with a strap-on dildo fucking another girl in the ass,” the former collaborator said. “He’s like, ‘What do you think of it?’ Not laughing at all.
“At the time I found it odd but in line with his persona as an edgy artist. Now, seeing it within a larger pattern, I feel it was a tactic to break a person down and establish their unwavering allegiance to him, testing and destroying people’s boundaries.”
According to a former senior Yeezy employee who witnessed Kanye play porn during several meetings, the Chicago rap icon told his staff he needed such videos playing in the background to keep him “focused.” Other former employees and collaborators believe he did it to “vet” workers and, in some cases, intimidate them.
Kanye West’s infatuation with porn apparently even fueled his actual designs. While examining Yeezy sneaker prototypes in China in 2017, he told one senior female employee: “I want you to make me a shoe I can fuck,” according to multiple people who attended the meeting. Ye reportedly told another female footwear designer during a 2018 job interview: “If you ever get stuck creatively, just watch porn for 10 minutes.”
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The bombshell allegations come as part of an open letter by several former high-ranking Yeezy employees, who claim that adidas bosses were aware of Kanye’s “problematic behavior” during their lucrative yet turbulent partnership with Yeezy (which has since been terminated), yet “turned their moral compass off.”
The letter, titled “The Truth About Yeezy: A Call to Action for Adidas Leadership,” also urges adidas’ executive board members and newly-installed CEO to address “the toxic and chaotic environment that Kanye West created” and “a very sick pattern of predacious behavior toward women” who worked under the rapper.
“He has, in years past, exploded at women in the room with offensive remarks, and would resort to sexually disturbing references when providing design feedback,” it reads. “This type of response from a brand partner is one that adidas employees should never be subjected to, nor should adidas leadership ever tolerate.”
In response, a spokesperson for adidas told Rolling Stone that the company “will not discuss private conversations, details, or events that lead [sic] to our decision to terminate the adidas Yeezy partnership and decline to comment on any related speculation.”
However, the spokesperson added: “We have been and continue to be actively engaged in conversations with our employees about the events that lead [sic] to our decision to end the [Yeezy] partnership. They have our full support and as we’re working through the details of the termination, we have been clear that we want to keep our employees’ talent and skills within the organization.”
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Kanye West has made no secret of his love for porn in the past. In a 2019 interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, the Chicago native admitted his porn addiction has played a major role in his life since he was a child.
“For me, Playboy was my gateway into full-on pornography addiction,” he said. “My dad had a Playboy left out at age five and it’s affected almost every choice I made for the rest of my life.”
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In 2018, Ye was even hired to as the creative director of the inaugural Pornhub Awards in Los Angeles, where he designed “bespoke erotica-inspired statues” in the shape of dildos for each winner, in addition to premiering his “I Love It” video with Lil Pump.
However, Kanye also seems to be aware of the destructive side of his porn obsession, admitting earlier this year that “pornography destroyed my family.”
