Kanye West has been making headlines for the past few months for all the wrong reasons. Now, he's back in news as former employees of Yeezy and Adidas have claimed that the rapper showed their staffers porn and explicit images of ex-wife Kim Kardashian to control them, Rolling Stone reported.
Former Yeezy and Adidas employees said that West used intimidation tactics with the staff of his fashion empire that was provocative, frequently sexualized, and often directed toward women.
That's not all, the staffers have also claimed that he played pornography to the staff in meetings; discussed porn and showed an intimate photograph of Kim Kardashian in job interviews; and showed explicit video and photos of Kardashian as well as his own sex tapes to Yeezy team members, the report said.
The former senior employee claims to have seen West play porn videos in meetings at least five times.
An open letter by prominent former members of the Yeezy team said that the leaders from Adidas were aware of West's "problematic behaviour" but "turned their moral compass off."
Pete Fox, former president of Yeezy told Rolling Stone that West used to bond one-on-one with the "misfits" and "art nerds" of Yeezy's startup days. "If he likes you and wants you on the team, he's super-charming," Fox explains, adding: "If he didn't like you or if something happened, he'd fly off the handle and it'd be over."
Mr Fox also revealed that they never saw porn together but they looked at things together that would be surprising to people. "In high fashion, there's a lot of sexy, controversial things that maybe they reference or look at, as opposed to a company like Adidas where you would never show any nudity in a mood board."
Other former employees of Yeezy and Adidas recalled an atmosphere in which West praised some employees while belittling staffers. They claimed that West used to play "mind games".
A staffer said, "He wanted to continue to use his power to violate you in a quiet way and threaten your role and existence within the team."
The letter also revealed that the rapper had a disturbing sexualized atmosphere around women. The letter claimed that West used to 'bully and intimidate to get what he wants.'
In 2018, during a job interview, West showed an explicit image of his ex-wife Kim Kardashian to one young creative. "My wife just sent me this," the rapper allegedly told him while pulling up a "very revealing and personal" photo of the reality TV star on his phone.
The employees also claimed that West showed pornographic images and videos- including his own sex tapes.
"I feel it was a tactic to break a person down and establish their unwavering allegiance to him, testing and destroying people's boundaries," a person said.
