LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Ye’s new attorney says the rapper has agreed to a give a deposition this spring in a lawsuit brought by a former Donda Academy employee who alleges the singer often treated him in a disparate way because the plaintiff, like Ye, is Black.
Benjamin Deshon Provo’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit also names as defendants Ye’s academy as well as his company, Yeezy LLC. On Wednesday, Ye’s recently hired attorney, Eduardo Martorell, filed court papers with Judge Kerry Bensinger asking the judge to cancel a scheduled Feb. 11 hearing to compel Ye’s deposition given that the entertainer has agreed to be deposed on April 29.
“As of the date and time of this filing, plaintiff has not caused the hearing on this motion to be taken off calendar, defendant therefore submits this opposition despite the expectation the motion will be taken off calendar as agreed,” Martorell states in a sworn statement.
According to the complaint filed last April 26, Provo was hired in August 2021 as a security guard at the academy founded by Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.
“Kanye and members of his management team subjected Provo and other Black employees to less favorable treatment than their white counterparts,” according to the suit, which further alleges that Ye often screamed at the plaintiff.
Provo alleges Ye, 47, also chided him for styling his hair according to the plaintiff’s Muslim religion, forcing Provo to wrestle with maintaining his self-identity in the face of financial rise.
Provo was eventually fired for not following Ye’s hair edict, the suit alleges.
In addition, Ye banned books about such famous Black civil rights figures as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, the suit states.
In previous court papers, Ye’s former attorney cited multiple defenses on behalf of the entertainer while asking that the plaintiff “take nothing by his complaint” and instead pay attorneys’ fees and costs to the singer.
Ye’s defenses include a violation of the statute of limitations, that the three defendants were “justified in doing any and/or all of the acts alleged in the complaint” and that the defendants did not “direct or ratify any alleged wrongful conduct.”
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