Model Jennifer An, who rose to prominence as a finalist on the 2009 season of America’s Next Top Model, is speaking out against Kanye West in a new interview with the BBC. In 2024, she filed a civil suit against the rapper describing how he allegedly choked her and used his fingers to simulate oral sex on her during a shoot for La Roux’s “In for the Kill” music video in 2010. The footage was not included in the final cut. “I feel like he was like trying to touch as much as he could,” she told the news network.
She also described how she felt unsafe, as his alleged actions caught her by surprise. “All of a sudden he just reaches a hand out and starts choking me, and I’m just not sure what’s happening,” she said. “And then, he pulled his other hand out and starts choking me with both hands, and then starts smearing my makeup all over my face and sticking his hands inside of my mouth.” What West did to her makeup, she said, “just felt wrong.” When he finished, she said West, “yelled something like, ‘this is art, I’m Picasso.'” She claims he said something along the lines of, “OK, I got what I want,” and left.
As the alleged incident happened, An says the production staff watched without saying anything. The model said she didn’t attempt to stop West since she was scared she could lose her job.
A rep for La Roux’s label, Universal, did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment.
An told the BBC that La Roux agreed not to include the footage in the video. When An contacted La Roux in 2024, the musician wrote in an Instagram message that she remembered West’s alleged behavior, calling it “horrific,” as previously reported.
A rep for La Roux did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment.
The model filed the lawsuit in 2024 under New York City’s Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act, which temporarily extended the statute of limitations for civil suits related to sexual violence. West’s lawyers have sought to dismiss the suit, claiming that his actions were those of an artist and therefore protected by the First Amendment. The attorneys describe An as “a consenting participant in the stage performance,” which West likened to a scene from American Pyscho and, his lawyers say, “incidentally may have caused the Plaintiff [An] to have difficulty breathing.”
A rep for West pointed to public filings in the case when asked for comment. The rep sent, in part, from the referenced filings, “the emulation of sexual violence for artistic purposes is not itself sexual violence, and the presence of physical contact in a staged performance does not transform expressive conduct into a crime, let alone into gender-motivated violence. Ms. An herself admits that the video was designed to ’emulate’ stylized violence for the camera. This admission negates any inference of gender-based hostility.”
An’s lawyer, Jesse Weinstein, told the BBC that the way West couched his alleged behavior as artistic expression was “a really dangerous precedent to set.”
Weinstein previously told Rolling Stone that An had a good case against West. “Our filing sets out substantial corroborating evidence supporting the allegations, including contemporaneous communications and witness testimony,” the lawyer said. “We believe the record makes clear that the claims have a substantial basis in law and fact and should proceed so that the evidence can be fully examined in court.”
West meanwhile has been mostly failing at mounting a comeback to performing live. Most recently, Florida Senator Rick Scott urged the Tampa Sports Authority to cancel the rapper’s upcoming concerts at Raymond James Stadium, pointing to instances in which West “openly praised Nazis, called himself one, and slandered Jews across the world.”
