Bianca Censori appeared in a Los Angeles courthouse Thursday to face questions about the Malibu mansion designed by famed Japanese architect Tadao Ando that her husband, Kanye West, purchased for $57 million in 2021 and subsequently gutted to build what his lawyer called an “off-the-grid” shelter.
Censori, 31, walked into the courtroom wearing a long black satin skirt and black cardigan sweater buttoned all the way up. She smiled at the jury and answered most questions with one-word replies. Asked if her husband, now known as Ye, told her he wanted to build an “off-the-grid bunker,” she pushed back.
“I believe he used that language to refer to aesthetics,” she said. “This was all concepts. The idea that it changed is not necessarily correct. When he would describe ideas, it was holistically his concept. It was always going to be a residence. That was never changing.”
She said her husband would “iterate on so many different ideas all the time,” in ways that were “speculative and conceptual” but with common threads spanning multiple projects. She said his overall “vision” had “basic rules.”
“He didn’t like stairs,” or “glazing,” meaning glass, she explained. “The big ones were no glazing, no stairs. It had to be ramps and slides. And he was really interested in mesh, trying mesh as the barrier between indoor and out.”
Censori’s testimony challenged claims from the plaintiff, Tony Saxon, and another witness, handyman Jeromy Holding, that Ye handed down strict orders with tight timelines and often no apparent logic. The men previously told jurors Ye wanted all plumbing, wiring, toilets, and access to all city utilities removed. Holding said Ye’s rotating plans for the home included having it serve as an extension of his private school, a bomb shelter, a monastery, a recording studio, and a playground for his kids filled with slides and ramps.An architect by training, Censori, 31, has been an enigmatic and largely silent fixture in West’s orbit for years, making her statements mostly through provocative performance art that often incorporates public nudity. She was called to testify at the civil trial after Saxon, a 35-year-old musician, vintage record dealer, and handyman, filed legal claims in 2023 over his seven-week tenure working on the house in late 2021.
In his lawsuit and courtroom testimony, Saxon has alleged he worked as a project manager and round-the-clock security guard at the contemporary concrete house until he was severely injured and then fired in retaliation for raising safety concerns. He alleges Ye neglected to provide workers’ compensation insurance and is now on the hook for not only unpaid wages but damages related to his medical expenses, loss of earnings, and emotional distress.
Saxon previously told jurors Censori was working as an architectural consultant on the project in late 2021 while West was still married to Kim Kardashian. Saxon said he regularly texted with Censori during that time, asking her advice on dealing with Ye and discussing designs. He claimed Bianca was nearby when Ye allegedly tore into him for not ripping out all the home’s electrical wiring fast enough and for pushing back when Ye ordered him to use fuel-powered generators indoors despite the risk of carbon-monoxide poisoning.
Censori testified Thursday that she once asked Saxon directly if he was a licensed contractor, and he purportedly told her that he was. Censori said she initially hired him to remove cabinets at the Ando house, and when he arrived on the first day, he appeared unkempt and expressed gratitude for the work because he allegedly had a bad credit score. Saxon’s lawyers asked if she ever did any research on him, considering this description. She admitted she never checked a state website to see if he was licensed. (For his part, Saxon claims he was always upfront that he wasn’t a licensed contractor.)
Asked if she ever met two other designers that Saxon brought onto the job, Censori mentioned seeing them on a Zoom call once, possibly related to another project. “My husband was very interested in this closed-loop city idea,” she explained. “Anybody who would be working on anything architectural would be working on that also.”
In other testimony, Censori confirmed she has power of attorney over her husband. “I can sign things on his behalf,” she told the jury.
In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Censori broke her silence about the Ando house as well as her marriage. “The thing about destruction is it gives life to something else,” she said of the mansion. “So, when I would enter that house that was quote, unquote ‘destroyed,’ bats were living inside of it, and the sea salt had taken over the steel that was in the house and was rusting.”
She described her public persona and barely-there looks, including a fully transparent dress worn at the 2025 Grammys, as living art of her own invention. “I wouldn’t be doing something I didn’t want to do,” she told the magazine, adding that she and her husband work on her outfits together. “It was like a collaboration. It was never ‘I was being told to do something.’ If you were married to Gianni Versace, wouldn’t he give you a dress or something?”
Censori acknowledged to Vanity Fair that there were moments, during some of Ye’s controversies, when she considered leaving him. She did not specify when. Less than a week after the Grammys, Ye posted on X, formerly Twitter, “I’m a Nazi,” followed by another message that read: “I HAVE DOMINION OVER MY WIFE. THIS AINT NO WOKE AS FEMINIST SHIT. SHES WITH A BILLIONAIRE.” Two days later, he aired a Super Bowl commercial promoting Yeezy.com, where shirts emblazoned with swastikas were offered for sale.
Censori told the magazine she sought inpatient treatment to work on herself, while Ye went to rehab and began taking medication. “All I can do is always just be there and help,” she said. “This year was a lot like doing CPR for months. I have the love and empathy for him to be able to do that, and I understand that the world doesn’t.”
Holding, the other handyman, testified that he almost got fired his first week on the job when he accidentally mistook Kardashian for Censori. “I said, ‘Oh, I thought you were Bianca,’” Holding recalled. He said the interaction led to an argument between Kardashian and Ye, with Kardashian leaving the home with the couple’s kids. Holding said Ye then called him upstairs to confront 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. “Nahhh,” Ye eventually told him, according to the testimony. Holding 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.
On Thursday, Censori testified that Ye had mentioned the incident with Kardashian and Holding. “He told me that she got upset,” she told the jury.
Ye’s lawyers have argued Saxon was paid $240,000 for less than two months of work and is now trying to defraud Ye with claims he was an employee, not an independent contractor. Ye is due to testify Friday before the case goes to the 12-member jury, which only needs agreement among nine members to reach a verdict.
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