Kanye West Sued Over Alleged Unsafe Conditions, ‘Unpaid Wages’ in Malibu Beach Home Renovation

I can’t imagine what it’s like to work in a creative role for Kanye West. Let’s put all the unsavory aspects of his image aside for a moment and just look at him as an artist. He’s always been someone who has a very specific vision and doesn’t seem to understand why others can’t appreciate the vision the same way he does. Former employee Tony Saxon, found out how difficult it is to bring Ye’s vision to life when he worked with the rapper on renovating his Malibu beach house. According to Sky News, the project went so badly that Saxon is now suing West for “violating labor codes and $1 million in unpaid wages.”

“Working for Ye was just insane. You never know what you’re gonna get next. You never know

who you’re gonna get, who’s gonna be on the other end of the phone,” Saxon said. “The pastor or the crazy rapper dictator.”

Saxon says the problems started when Ye wanted him to remove all the windows, the plumbing and electricity. Apparently, the College Dropout rapper was trying to turn the home into a weird bomb shelter getaway. When West told Saxon to move the power generators inside, he refused because it was “super irresponsible and super dangerous.”

“He goes, ‘If you don’t do what I asked you to do and if you don’t listen to me, then

you’re an enemy. You’re a Clinton, you’re a Kardashian, and I’m not going to be your friend

anymore. I’m not going to give you an opportunity anymore,’” Saxon said.

He described the difficulty in being paid properly by West, noting that there are multiple reasons why workers may not receive wages and they never really know what’s going on.

“He doesn’t pay anybody. People drop everything and do all this work for him. Last minute, get all their resources, all their personnel together, they do all this stuff,” he said. “Then he’ll either go ‘I changed my mind’ or ‘I don’t like it’ or completely forget.”

In the lawsuit obtained by NBC News, it states “When Plaintiff refused to engage in unlawful conduct or to engage in activity that would further cause him physical injury, Mr. Ye responded: ‘If you don’t do what I say, you’re not going to work for me, I’m not gonna be your friend anymore and you’ll just see me on TV.”

Saxon told NBC the renovation as an “art project,” revealing that Ye wanted a place to “hide from the Clintons in and the Kardashians in.” In addition to the windows, electricity and plumbing, they also removed all the home’s custom finishes and replaced the stairs with slides.

Despite my many questions about how this house was going to function on a basic logistical level, I’m not the one who has to live in Kanye’s Bat Cave bomb shelter. But remember all those unsavory aspects of his personality I alluded to earlier, this situation hits on perhaps the most troubling one. His alleged refusal to abide by safe working conditions because he was so desperate to see his vision realized highlights how far away from the real world he now sees himself. The further away from his regular Chicago upbringing he gets, the more he becomes a laughingstock alone on an island with no credibility and that’s a truly sad turn of events for someone who was once the voice of a generation.