A former Donda Academy employee says refusing to cut his dreadlocks cost him his job, and now he wants Kanye West to pay up.
Benjamin Provo is seeking up to roughly $23 million in damages, claiming in court filings that he faced racial discrimination while working at Ye’s private school in 2022, per TMZ.
Provo alleges that Ye wanted him to remove his dreadlocks and fired him after he refused. He also claims the school removed books by well-known Black leaders.
His case now includes testimony from one of Ye’s former top employees, Milo Yiannopoulos.
“If you have really thin skin about racially charged remarks … this really is not the company for you,” Yiannopoulos allegedly said during a deposition, according to Provo’s filing. Provo says Yiannopoulos also testified that working at Yeezy meant accepting “the provocative way Ye talked about religion.” Yiannopoulos has since been deported back to the United Kingdom.
Ye, however, is challenging Provo’s explanation of their working relationship. In court documents, the rapper argues that Provo worked for an outside staffing company rather than for West directly.
A judge has not awarded the multimillion-dollar demand, which represents what Provo says he believes he is entitled to recover.