American rapper Kanye West has been accused in a new lawsuit of sucker-punching a man at a Los Angeles restaurant.
The plaintiff, suing as a John Doe over “credible security concerns” and to avoid “further reputational harm,” says he was sitting with his brother in the private venue’s outdoor garden when West, now known as Ye, allegedly blindsided him with a blow around 11 p.m. on April 16, 2024.
“Without warning, defendant punched plaintiff in the face. The punch knocked plaintiff to the ground where he hit his head and lost consciousness,” the complaint filed Monday in Los Angeles and obtained by Rolling Stone, reads. “Defendant then repeatedly punched plaintiff as he lay unconscious on the ground, with the intent to cause physical harm.”
The lawsuit claims the “cowardly attack” was “shocking, physically harmful, and offensive.” The man says Ye showed malice by allegedly punching him while he was out cold and deciding “to flee to the protection of his security detail, leaving plaintiff injured and unconscious on the concrete floor.” The man says he needed medical treatment afterward.
The filing hints at a prior interaction involving a woman in Ye’s entourage but offers few details. It insists neither the plaintiff nor his brother did anything to trigger the alleged violence.
“Plaintiff did nothing at all to provoke it,” the filing states. “Plaintiff’s brother did not engage in any offensive or inappropriate conduct toward any woman in defendant’s party earlier that evening, or at any time. This is not a case of mistaken identity in which defendant attacked the wrong brother. Neither brother engaged in any wrongful conduct at any time.”
In the days after the incident, the lawsuit claims, Ye “falsely accused” the plaintiff of inappropriate conduct with the woman and then “repeated and embellished these lies” on a widely viewed podcast, fueling “public scorn, suspicion, and ridicule.”
The lawsuit says evidence, “including video recordings from the scene, proves that plaintiff did not engage in any inappropriate or offensive conduct with a woman in defendant’s party, or anyone else.” The man says the dissemination of the “falsehoods, made with reckless disregard for the devastating impact they would have on plaintiff’s personal, professional and emotional well-being, constitutes extreme and outrageous conduct beyond all bounds of decency tolerated in a civilized society.”
“The complaint speaks for itself,” the plaintiff’s lawyer, Robert Shapiro, tells Rolling Stone. He said his client filed anonymously in the hope the case could be concluded with minimal attention.
“We wanted to give everyone the opportunity to see if the matter could be solved or resolved confidentially in mediation,” he says.
“My policy is to try to resolve matters. If we can do them confidentially, I think it’s in everyone’s interest, and we’ll give people that opportunity.”