A self-described handyman testified Monday that\u00a0Kanye West, the artist now known as Ye, regularly visited his $57 million Malibu mansion during\u00a0its controversial demolition in 2021, issuing shifting and often \u201cnebulous\u201d instructions, and at times pulling workers aside for reprimands.<\/p>\n
Jeromy Holding, 53, was called to corroborate\u00a0earlier testimony<\/a>\u00a0from plaintiff Tony Saxon, the former project manager now suing Ye over alleged on-the-job injuries. In colorful testimony, Holding laughed in dismay at how wild it was to witness the dismantling of the \u201cbitchin\u201d and \u201cimmaculate\u201d house designed by Pritzker Prize\u2013winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando. He told jurors Ye nearly fired him during his first week.<\/p>\n Leaning back in the witness chair, his left hand bandaged in medical tape after he almost \u201csliced\u201d his pinky off on another gig, Holding recalled pulling into the oceanfront job on his second or third day and spotting a woman crossing in front of his van. He waved enthusiastically, thinking she was Bianca Censori, an architectural designer on the project he had already met.<\/p>\n The woman lowered her sunglasses as if to say, \u201cI don\u2019t know you,\u201d and walked away, he recalled. Ye later introduced the woman as his wife at the time,\u00a0Kim Kardashian.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Oh, I thought you were Bianca,\u2019\u201d Holding testified. \u201cI walked around the house, and then they started arguing. Then she took the kids, and I got called upstairs.\u201d Holding said the artist confronted him.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the most famous women in the world, and you call her by another woman\u2019s name? What say you?\u201d Ye allegedly demanded in a stern voice mimicked on the stand by Holding. \u201cYou did it on purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n Holding said his face was burning with embarrassment. He offered to leave and never return. \u201cNahhh,\u201d Ye eventually told him, according to the testimony. He continued on the job, sometimes exchanging direct messages with Ye, he said. A year later, Ye and Censori got married one month after\u00a0Ye\u2019s divorce from Kardashian\u00a0was finalized.<\/p>\n In his own testimony, Saxon said Ye hired him as an employee of Yeezy Construction, directed him to demolish portions of the home without permits, and agreed to pay him $20,000 a week to oversee the project and provide round-the-clock security. Saxon, 35, told jurors he injured his neck and back at the site but felt pressure to continue working to meet deadlines. He said Ye wanted to convert the home into an off-the-grid bunker with all traditional plumbing and electrical systems disconnected from public utilities and removed.<\/p>\n Asked how the house would function without a public water supply, Saxon testified last week that Ye proposed a system in which \u201chis urine and feces be treated into fresh water for drinking and bathing for him.\u201d Saxon said he consulted plumbers and other experts about the concept, but no such system was installed before his termination.<\/p>\n Saxon said he was eventually fired after raising safety concerns about the power plan. \u201cYe attacked me. He got in my face, saying, \u2018I just plugged my phone in, and the outlets are still working. Why is the electricity still there? Why is there still power in the house?\u2019 He was really upset,\u201d Saxon testified.<\/p>\n Saxon said he reminded Ye that the project\u2019s renewable energy proposals were still up in the air. Ye purportedly said they should use fuel\u2013powered generators in the meantime. When Saxon warned that moving the loud generators inside would create a carbon monoxide hazard, Ye allegedly replied, \u201cIf you don\u2019t do what I ask you to do, you\u2019re an enemy. You\u2019re a Clinton. You\u2019re a Kardashian. And I won\u2019t be your friend anymore, and you\u2019re only gonna see me on the TV and the news,\u201d Saxon told jurors.<\/p>\n Saxon says he told Ye he didn\u2019t watch TV. \u201cIt was a very scary interaction. He flipped on a dime on me,\u201d he testified.<\/p>\n On Monday, Holding appeared to back up Saxon\u2019s account. He said Ye\u2019s plans for the property were a moving target that \u201ckept evolving.\u201d He recalled hearing the house would serve variously as a private school location, a bomb shelter, a monastery, a recording studio, and a playground with slides and ramps.<\/p>\n By the time Holding and Saxon began working together in September 2021, renovation was already underway, he said. Asked whether permits were being pulled for the work, Holding replied, \u201cAbsolutely not.\u201d Given the home\u2019s location on the sand in Malibu, he said, approval from the California Coastal Commission would likely have taken years.<\/p>\n \u201cTony was already being asked to do the work, so obviously there were no permits being pulled,\u201d Holding testified. \u201cYou don\u2019t call Tony Saxon to [secure permits] of that nature.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, designers affiliated with Ye would send drawings that he and Saxon were expected to translate into reality, Holding testified. \u201cNothing we did there was of our own volition,\u201d he testified. He recalled Ye expressing frustration with the pace of the work. \u201cHe had actually gotten upset with Tony for not moving faster,\u201d Holding testified, saying he witnessed the interaction.<\/p>\n In one instance, Holding said he retrieved two-inch stainless steel handrails intended to be installed around a hole in the floor designed to function as a latrine. \u201cI didn\u2019t ask questions,\u201d he said. \u201cThey paid direct to the supplier, and I picked them up.\u201d<\/p>\n In what could prove significant testimony, Holding said he remembered Saxon appearing to be in pain at the job site, \u201chunching, holding his back,\u201d after using a jackhammer. He said Saxon also appeared to suffer an injury when they removed two chimney stacks.<\/p>\n In his opening statement, Ye\u2019s lawyer described Saxon as an unlicensed independent contractor who earned more than $240,000 for roughly six weeks of work and is now seeking compensation for problems of his own making. During Saxon\u2019s cross-examination last week, the lawyer, Andrew Cherkasky, called Saxon \u201cwildly unqualified\u201d and pressed Saxon about his claim Ye promoted him to oversee the renovation project.<\/p>\n \u201cHe said, \u2018No problem. I\u2019m putting you in charge, even though you have no experience, no license, you\u2019ve never done any concrete work, have no engineering degree, and nothing more than a GED?\u2019\u201d Cherkasky said, recounting Saxon\u2019s version of events. \u201cThis was a $57 million mansion on the beach with the California Coastal Commission potentially breathing down your neck. And yet, he agreed to hire you to oversee that house?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe certainly did,\u201d Saxon responded.<\/p>\n Saxon\u2019s cross-examination was set to resume after Holding concluded his testimony. Ye and Censori are expected to be called later this week as the final witnesses in Saxon\u2019s case. The lawsuit is the first to reach trial among a wave of civil complaints filed by plaintiffs who worked for Ye in recent years. The artist faced more than a dozen lawsuits following antisemitic remarks in 2022 and later issued multiple public apologies. In January, he issued an apology in a full-page advertisement in\u00a0The Wall Street Journal\u00a0and linked his behavior to\u00a0bipolar disorder and past head trauma<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014<\/p>\n This article originally appeared on Rolling Stone.<\/strong><\/p>\n More from VIBE.com<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Vibe’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A self-described handyman testified Monday that\u00a0Kanye West, the artist now known as Ye, regularly visited his $57 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[12554,434,18,117,27129,19,17,169613,4113,169614],"class_list":{"0":"post-366685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-bianca-censori","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-holding","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-jeromy-holding","16":"tag-kim-kardashian","17":"tag-tony-saxon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116168778505174542","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}