A self-described handyman testified Monday that Kanye West, the artist now known as Ye, regularly visited his $57 million Malibu mansion during its controversial demolition in 2021, issuing shifting and often “nebulous” instructions, and at times pulling workers aside for reprimands.
Jeromy Holding, 53, was called to corroborate earlier testimony from 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 “bitchin” and “immaculate” house designed by Pritzker Prize–winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando. He told jurors Ye nearly fired him during his first week.
Leaning back in the witness chair, his left hand wrapped in medical tape after he almost “sliced” 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.
The woman lowered her sunglasses as if to say, “I don’t know you,” and walked away, he recalled. Ye later introduced the woman as his wife at the time, Kim Kardashian.
“I said, ‘Oh, I thought you were Bianca,’” Holding testified. “I walked around the house, and then they started arguing. Then she took the kids, and I got called upstairs.” Holding said the artist confronted him.
“One of the most famous women in the world, and you call her by another woman’s name? What say you?” Ye allegedly demanded in a stern voice mimicked on the stand by Holding. “You did it on purpose.”
Holding said his face was burning with embarrassment. He offered to leave and never return. “Nah,” 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 Ye’s divorce from Kardashian was finalized.
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.
Asked how the house would function without a public water supply, Saxon testified last week that Ye proposed a system in which “his urine and feces be treated into fresh water for drinking and bathing for him.” Saxon said he consulted plumbers and other experts about the concept, but no such system was installed before his termination.
Saxon said he was eventually fired after raising safety concerns about the power plan. “Ye attacked me. He got in my face, saying, ‘I 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?’ He was really upset,” Saxon testified.
Saxon said he reminded Ye that the project’s renewable energy proposals were still up in the air. Ye purportedly said they should use fuel–powered generators in the meantime. When Saxon warned that moving the loud generators inside would create a carbon monoxide hazard, Ye allegedly replied, “If you don’t do what I ask you to do, you’re an enemy. You’re a Clinton. You’re a Kardashian. And I won’t be your friend anymore, and you’re only gonna see me on the TV and the news,” Saxon told jurors.
Saxon says he told Ye he didn’t watch TV. “It was a very scary interaction. He flipped on a dime on me,” he testified.
On Monday, Holding appeared to back up Saxon’s account. He said Ye’s plans for the property were a moving target that “kept evolving.” He recalled hearing the house would serve variously as a private school location, a bomb shelter, a monastery, or a playground with slides and ramps.
By the time Holding and Saxon began working together in September 2021, demolition was already underway, he said. Asked whether permits were being pulled for the work, Holding replied, “Absolutely not.” Given the home’s location on the sand in Malibu, he said, approval from the California Coastal Commission would likely have taken years.
“Tony was already being asked to do the work, so obviously there were no permits being pulled,” Holding testified. “You don’t call Tony Saxon to [secure permits] of that nature.”
Instead, designers affiliated with Ye would send drawings that he and Saxon were expected to translate into reality, Holding testified. “Nothing we did there was of our own volition,” he testified. He recalled Ye expressing frustration with the pace of the work. “He had actually gotten upset with Tony for not moving faster,” Holding testified, saying he witnessed the interaction.
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. “I didn’t ask questions,” he said. “They paid direct to the supplier, and I picked them up.”
In what could prove significant testimony, Holding said he remembered Saxon appearing to be in pain at the job site, “hunching, holding his back,” after using a jackhammer. He said Saxon also appeared to suffer an injury when they removed two chimney stacks.
In his opening statement, Ye’s 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’s cross-examination last week, the lawyer, Andrew Cherkasky, called Saxon “wildly unqualified” and pressed Saxon about his claim Ye promoted him to oversee the renovation project.
“He said, ‘No problem. I’m putting you in charge, even though you have no experience, no license, you’ve never done any concrete work, have no engineering degree, and nothing more than a GED?’” Cherkasky said, recounting Saxon’s version of events. “This 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?”
“He certainly did,” Saxon responded.
Saxon’s 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’s 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 The Wall Street Journal and linked his behavior to bipolar disorder and past head trauma.
