Kanye West asks to delay trial over employee allegedly fired for refusing to cut dreads

Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, is seeking to postpone a trial in a lawsuit filed by a former security guard at his Donda Academy, asking a judge to move the start from this fall to next spring over claims the plaintiff has stalled on giving a deposition.

Benjamin Deshon Provo filed the suit in Los Angeles Superior Court against the rapper in April 2024.

Provo alleges that Ye, now 49, reprimanded him over his dreadlocks, worn in observance of his Muslim faith. Provo worked at Donda Academy and for Yeezy, Ye’s apparel company.

“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.

The lawsuit alleges that Provo was ultimately fired for failing to follow Ye’s hair edict.

On Wednesday, Ye’s lawyers filed court papers asking Judge Brock T. Hammond to reset the scheduled start of trial from Oct. 12 to May 17, 2027, or to another date convenient to the court and available to Provo.

“Despite months of repeated requests from defendants, plaintiff Benjamin Deshon Provo has refused to sit for deposition and his counsel had refused to offer any dates for his deposition…,” Ye’s attorneys contend in their court papers.

Provo’s deposition testimony is “essential to the fair determination of this action,” Ye’s attorneys state in their court papers.

After producing several people for deposition and responding to hundreds of written discovery requests, Ye’s side sought Provo’s deposition and was repeatedly stymied, Ye’s attorneys further contend in their court papers.

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In his suit, Provo alleges that members of the rapper’s management team required Provo to choose between “critical aspects of his self-identity and financial stability.”

Last month, Ye appealed a jury’s $140,000 award to handyman Tony Saxon, who accused him of underpaying him for renovation work at his Malibu mansion.

Saxon’s lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, claimed the pair had a 2021 agreement for $20,000 per week but that he received only one payment and an additional $100,000 for construction costs. Judge Brock Hammond upheld the March 11 verdict.