Ye Battles Contractor Seeking $1 Million as Lawsuit Trial Begins

A jury trial against Ye begins today as a contractor is seeking $1 million in damages from the rapper.

According to a People.com report, Ye’s trial against Tony Saxon, a designer and contractor, who sued the Chicago rapper-producer over alleged unsafe working conditions and unpaid wages, begins today (Feb. 23) with jury selection in Los Angeles. The trial will not be televised.

Saxon first filed his lawsuit in September of 2023. According to Saxon’s legal documents obtained by XXL, in September 2021, Ye and his wife, Bianca Censori, hired Saxon as a project manager for the renovation of the Tadao-Ando-designed mansion in Malibu, Calif., which Ye had purchased that same year for $57.3 million. The renovations included demolishing the kitchen and all five bathrooms, restructuring the staircase into a slide and cutting off all the electricity. Saxon claimed he and Ye agreed on a pay rate of $20,000 per week, but had only received two payments during his employment.

In his 40-page lawsuit, Saxon detailed horrible workplace conditions including being required to sleep in the gutted mansion on a makeshift bed and working 16-hour days. At one point, he woke up in the middle of the night to see Ye allegedly standing over him. In early November of 2021, Saxon claimed he “injured his back severely” and requested time off to get some rest, but Ye allegedly insisted that work on the house proceed despite his injury.

Finally, when Saxon allegedly informed Ye about the construction site’s unsafe environment, he was terminated from the job on Nov. 5, 2021. Ye reportedly sold the gutted Malibu mansion for $21 million in September of 2024.

Saxon is seeking over $1 million in damages to cover unpaid wages and lost earnings. He’s also pursuing damages for medical costs and emotional distress.

“Ye has shown a reckless disregard toward his employees and has flouted the law in unbelievably dangerous ways throughout this entire project at the Malibu house,” said Tony Saxon’s attorney Ron Zambrano, a partner and Employment Litigation Chair at West Coast Employment Lawyers, in a September 2024 statement. “No employee should have to suffer through the sort of working conditions Mr. Saxon was forced to endure yet Ye showed no concern and merely wanted the work done, despite the hazardous and unsafe, not to mention illegal, actions he was trying to force the plaintiff to undertake. Mr. Saxon refused and was fired merely for trying to do the right thing, and now Ye won’t pay him the money he is owed under the law.”

Ye has denied Saxon’s allegations in his complaint. His wife Bianca is expected testify in the trial, according to TMZ.

See ABC Nightline’s News Report: Tony Saxon Describes His Experience Working with Ye