Kanye West’s ex Kim Kardashian and their four children fled her Calabasas, California home last week as wildfire flames licked at its doorstep.
If Kardashian ever needed a place to stay, she could have sought refuge at West’s new $35 million mansion in Beverly Hills.
The massive 20,000-square-foot property features 11 bedrooms, 18 bathrooms, two pools, and a spa. Despite the ample space, chances are that West wouldn’t have been present.
After all, the eccentric 47-year-old rapper, producer and entrepreneur has hardly set foot in the US in the past eight months.
Despite Kardashian’s claims of his neglectful parenting towards their kids – North, 11, Saint, 9, Chicago, 6, and Psalm, 5 – West has chosen to maintain his distance. His prolonged absence has raised concerns among both his supporters and critics regarding the reasons behind his detachment.
Kanye West ‘s ex Kim Kardashian and their four children, Psalm, Chicago, Saint and North (pictured here), fled her Calabasas home last week as wildfire flames flicked at its doorstep.
If Kim Kardashian needs somewhere to stay, she could take shelter at West’s sprawling new $35 million mega-mansion in nearby Beverly Hills.
The eccentric 47-year-old rapper, producer and entrepreneur (pictured here with wife Bianca Censori) has hardly set foot in the US in the past eight months.
But now sources exclusively tell Daily Mail there is a reason West has not been around and it has nothing to do with avoiding his parental duties.
‘Kanye’s reasoning for not being [in America] has nothing to do with his children and has everything to do with the multiple lawsuits that he is facing in the states,’ the sources told the Mail.
Indeed, West has been globe-trotting with wife Bianca Censori, traveling from Tuscany in May, to Paris, then, controversially, Russia in June – even as his legal troubles accumulated.
West was pictured at a family party in Los Angeles in August and then a few days later, driving in a Tesla Cybertruck past a Donald Trump rally in Beverly Hills. He’s now reportedly living in Tokyo. And last week, he celebrated his wife’s 30th birthday alongside her parents at a rooftop restaurant in Dubai.
The familial scene was a far cry from the hedonistic spectacle the couple hosted in the Maldives on January 5. Videos posted to social media showed Censori writhing on the dance floor – her legs wrapped around her husband’s waist as he planted his face in her bosom.
These antics no longer shock, but West’s choice of such far-flung destinations – some as distant from the US (and West’s children) as is earthly possible – are raising questions over his months-long absence from America.
‘With all this stuff with Diddy, Kanye is terrified,’ the sources said.
Disgraced media mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is currently in federal custody facing a litany of charges, including sex trafficking related to drug-fuelled ‘freak-off’ orgies.
It was in June, just when West began spending more time abroad, that he was named in an ongoing wrongful termination and sexual harassment lawsuit by his former assistant, and Censori-lookalike, Lauren Pisciotta, 36.
Pisciotta claimed West had subjected her to repeated incidents of sexual harassment when she worked for him in 2021 and 2022, and that he fired her after she refused to sleep with him.
West has denied all the claims.
Then in an updated filing in October, Pisciotta added a raft of new accusations. She alleged that she was sexually assaulted by West sometime before she began working for him in 2021.
West has been globe-trotting with wife Bianca Censori, traveling from Tuscany in May, to Paris, then, controversially, Russia in June (they are pictured together in the Maldives on January 5).
‘With all this stuff with Diddy, Kanye is terrified,’ sources said. Disgraced media mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs (pictured left) is currently in federal custody facing a litany of charges.
Pisciotta claimed the incident occurred during a party at a Santa Monica recording studio, where Combs was allegedly present.
She claims that she was told to either have a drink or leave and beverages ‘poured at the direction of West’ were served. After drinking, she allegedly ‘slip[ed] into an altered and highly-impaired state.’
Only years later, Pisciotta says, did West suggest to her that they had sexual relations that evening.
Pisciotta also alleged that as West’s personal assistant she was tasked with organizing orgies and was asked to recruit sex workers and procure a supply of sexual-enhancement products that West allegedly called his ‘sex honey’.
Pisciotta’s lawyer, Mark Koorenny, said in filings in November that West had been ‘out of the country’ and he accused the rapper of ‘evading service [of a subpoena]’ stalling the lawsuit.
West’s lawyers have denied all of these allegations as well and did not respond to the Mail’s request to respond to this reporting.
In June, West lawyers said they are preparing a countersuit against Pisciotta.
Sources tell the Mail that, despite maintaining his innocence, West fears being dragged into litigation, perhaps as a witness, around Combs’ case.
After all, Kanye and Combs were once fast friends.
Combs once credited West with helping re-kindle his ‘love’ with hip hop and over the years they’ve publicly partied together, including at Diddy’s lavish, star-studded 50th birthday party held in a Beverly Hills mansion in 2019.
In 2022, West presented Diddy with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the BET Awards. He said at the time: ‘I go to him for advice to this day. He inspired so many of my choices.’
The friendship crumbled later that year in October, however, when West wore a t-shirt branded with the slogan White Lives Matter in apparent mockery of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Diddy called the stunt ‘tone deaf’ and the pair had a furious argument over text that Kanye later shared to his Instagram.
‘I told you this was war,’ West tells Diddy in the exchange. ‘Now gone get you some business.’ The pair have reportedly been feuding since.
In June, West was named in an ongoing wrongful termination and sexual harassment lawsuit by his former assistant, and Censori-lookalike, Lauren Pisciotta, 36 (pictured).
And the Pisciotta suit is not the only legal worry that West is facing.
In October, an anonymous former staff member, hired to work on Kanye’s hapless 2024 presidential campaign, claimed Kanye had threatened to kill him.
Former America’s Next Top Model contestant Jennifer An alleged in a lawsuit lodged in November that West choked her in a ‘pornographic’ way on the set of a music video in 2010.
And there’s another legal action brought by the former project manager of West’s Malibu home in 2023, alleging, among other things, that Kanye withheld payment and violated labor rules.
With all the allegations waiting, it may not be surprising Kanye seems to be avoiding America, even at the cost of spending time with his children.
‘Kanye loves his kids more than life itself and has said this many times. He speaks to them and Facetimes with them often. North is a daddy’s little girl.
‘[West] maintains his innocence, but this is what he’s keeping out of the country for,’ the Mail is told.
But as the suits continue to progress and his children likely grapple with the trauma of living in fire-ravaged Los Angeles, West may soon have no choice but to return and face the music.
