Big old yikes. 

Kanye West is facing some serious allegations from people who worked on his live Christian opera show, called Nebuchadnezzar, including claims of unpaid wages, not paying minimum wage and overtime, and refusing to provide appropriate meal and rest breaks when he hosted a series of shows at LA venue The Hollywood Bowl last year.

Documents published on The Blast show Kanye and promoters Live Nation allegedly being sued by multiple workers on the production for the above mistreatment. Details on Vice reveal the first lawsuit stems from crew members hired for the show, while the second concerns the performers themselves. 

Both lawsuits claim Kanye misclassified the people he hired as independent contractors instead of employees – allowing him to avoid thousands of dollars in taxes and having to abide by Californian labour laws that would require him to give workers basic rights.

All up, the legal action could reportedly add up to USD $1 million in damages against the rapper.

Nebuchadnezzar, which featured onstage performers, the Sunday Service choir, basketball player Shek Wes and, of course, Kanye, was described by some critics as a “trainwreck”, “a nonsensical, hastily thrown together mismash of dancing and largely wordless singing, which dragged on for about an hour while West read Bible verses into a microphone somewhere offstage”, according to Vice.

Kanye has yet to respond to the allegations.

Written by Sangeeta Kocharekar, an American-born, Sydney-based writer at MTV. Photos from her pre-COVID-19 days as a travel writer are here.