YEEZY CONFIDENTIAL PT. 1

“It Was Like a Cult”. On the record with ex-YEEZY Senior Designer Pierre Louis Auvray on the fear, abuse and harassment that fueled Kanye West’s YEEZY empire

"I didn’t sign Kanye West’s NDA the first day I arrived at YEEZY, I told them I would do it after I went to the toilet. I didn’t do it."

These words from Pierre-Louis Auvray , a former Senior Designer at YEEZY, set the tone for his turbulent journey working with Kanye West. In an exclusive interview, Pierre pulls back the curtain on the chaos, manipulation, and harassment behind the rapper’s now infamous brand, offering a glimpse into the dysfunction and dark undercurrents of life at YEEZY.

Pierre’s unexpected entry into the world of Kanye West began after his NYFW debut in the VFILES Spring/Summer 2020 show in September of 2019. What he thought would be a standard media coverage request in the form of an email saying “it would be a big opportunity” by famed fashion documentarian Loic Prigent quickly turned into a segment mocking him. "I thought it was going to be a nice segment, you know, just coverage of the show, but it ended up being a whole segment making fun of me," Pierre says, recalling the moment. Undeterred by the mockery, Pierre’s talent still managed to make an impression. A few months later, in November, Pierre received a direct message on Instagram from a woman claiming to work at YEEZY. "She said, ‘Hey, we’d like to set up a call to show your work,’" Pierre recalls. Initially skeptical, he brushed it off as a scam until the woman provided a legitimate contact with Kanye’s general manager, Laurence Chandler. When Chandler called, Pierre was told Kanye wanted to meet him for a potential collaboration. "You’re gonna love YEEZY; it’s a big family," Chandler reassured him.

Excited but unsure, Pierre flew to Calabasas, California, in early 2020. He arrived in the heart of YEEZY's operations, located just next to Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS office. The 14,390 square foot Willo Peron designed headquarters were impressive, but the reality of working with Kanye was more complex. Pierre was excited at first, flattered even by the attention. But his excitement quickly turned into frustration as he spent hours waiting for Kanye to arrive. "I got to the studio and Kanye wasn’t there for most of the day," he recalls. "Then I went back to the hotel, and they called me saying, ‘Kanye is back in the studio. Can you come back?’" Pierre, stressed by the day’s delay, took a Xanax before heading back to the studio. When he returned, Kanye was getting a shave, and Pierre was told to wait while the celebrity’s grooming continued. It was an awkward and surreal moment, but Pierre pushed forward, presenting his portfolio.

Kanye’s initial disinterest was evident, but as Pierre explained his inspirations and presented his work, Kanye’s demeanor shifted. "He got really, really into it when I showed him my illustrations," Pierre explains. It was a turning point in their relationship, though one that would soon become even more fraught.

Despite not signing the NDA, Pierre’s work with YEEZY continued. Initially told he would be staying for a week, the project extended further as Kanye offered him a more permanent role. He began working on YEEZY Season 8, in the position of Senior Designer. "I was making clothes, making graphics, prints—whatever Kanye wanted," Pierre says, reflecting on the freedom and creativity of his early work. But that initial excitement soon gave way to disillusionment as the work environment became more erratic and unsettling.

At the start, Pierre recalls, the YEEZY team seemed well-organized, with clear leadership roles in place. Designers, both junior and senior, knew their places, and there was structure. But by 2021, that structure disintegrated. "At first, it wasn’t chaotic, everything was pretty well organized," Pierre says. "But by 2021, everything was all over the place." The atmosphere shifted, with favoritism becoming the main driving force behind promotions, project assignments, and the very culture of the company. "He has his favorite people, and you had to do what they asked," Pierre explains. The situation at YEEZY was akin to a revolving door—people came and went with such frequency that it created an air of instability. "People would start working on a collection, and then after a few months, they’d get dropped and new people would come in," Pierre adds. "Nothing ever gets made."

This sense of constant flux led Pierre to describe the culture at YEEZY as a "loop"—a never-ending cycle of new projects, new faces, and ultimately, a lack of loyalty. "Nothing ever got finished. And Kanye would constantly fire people, only to hire them back later. It was always changing," he says. The culture of instability and abrupt firings contributed to a pervasive sense of fear within the team. "It was just about who Kanye liked on a given day," Pierre recalls, "and if you weren’t one of those people, you could be out in a second."

During his time at YEEZY, Pierre also had encounters with Kim Kardashian. "Yeah, she was really nice. I was supposed to do a collab with SKIMS. She was really sweet," Pierre recalls. However, working on Kanye’s projects when she was around was stressful because Kanye insisted that they hide their work from Kim. "He didn’t want her to see what we were working on," Pierre explains. "It wasn’t always about stealing—he doesn’t want to hear other people’s input, like specific people in his head that he doesn’t want input from." He pauses… “So he sabotaged my SKIMS project”. In February 2021 SKIMS Creative Director Kim Schraub contacted Pierre with an offer to design a capsule for Kim Kardashian’s brand. Feeling a bit uneasy about immediately accepting he emailed Kanye’s general manager Laurence Chandler that he had gotten a project offer. Chandler advised him to just ask Kanye directly, however once Pierre revealed who it was for Chandler stopped answering. The next day Kim Schraub rescinded the job offer and later that day news broke that Kim Kardashian had filed for divorce from Kanye West.

Housing for YEEZY employees was another issue. "At first, we were in a hotel Kanye provided for employees, and then they were like, ‘Oh, you have to pay for your own place,’ and we had to find an Airbnb," Pierre explains. "When I started, we were in Calabasas, then we were in Woodland Hills, and it was really, really a dump. The hotel wasn’t bad, but then they wanted us to pay for accommodation."

Salary was another contentious topic. "When I started, because I had no idea how much you could ask, I asked for like $500 a day," Pierre says. "But then I realized everyone around me was making $1,000 a day. Nobody wanted to talk about salaries, but the people who were paid more usually got fired first."

This ever-changing and tense environment began to take a toll on employees, with morale plunging. After Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from Kanye in early 2021, Pierre noticed a drastic shift in the tone of the workplace. "After 2021, it was just like abuse, manipulation, overworking," Pierre explains. "It was the worst things you can think of." The divorce, he says, marked the point when Kanye began acting with more volatility, cruelty, and unpredictability. "It was like a cult," Pierre says.

Over time, Auvray noticed an unusual shift. Employees began mirroring West’s speech patterns and adopting his phrasing in internal communications. “Everybody started typing like Kanye. It sounds funny, but it’s not." The workplace atmosphere became toxic, with bullying and mind games being a daily part of the culture.

For Pierre, one of the most insidious aspects of the work environment was the sense of constant surveillance. "He loves kicking people out of the group chat," Pierre recalls, referencing the various group chats that Kanye used to communicate with his team. "It sounds silly, but when you’re in it, you can tell something’s wrong," Pierre explains. The fear of being suddenly removed from the group chat was a constant anxiety, as it often signified that someone was about to be fired. "It was like mind games. No one knew what was coming next."

Things grew even darker for Auvray in late 2021, when Bianca Censori, a newly hired architect at YEEZY, began sending disturbing and inappropriate messages asking him to create lewd and racist images. “She sent things like an image of Edward Scissorhands renamed “Edward Niggerhands” and graphic porn," Pierre recalls, in shock. "It was just bizarre, but at the time, I didn’t know what to make of it." Things continued to grew even more sinister in November when Pierre joined Kanye for a trip to SpaceX and a meeting with Elon Musk in Texas. "We were on the way to SpaceX, and Kanye was being nice to me, but then he started rapping about people dying at Travis Scott’s Astroworld concert in the car” Pierre says. "He was looking at me like he expected me to laugh, and that’s when I first started realizing he was awful."

Texts from Bianca Censori to YEEZY Senior Designer Pierre Louis Auvray depicting graphic porn & racial slurs

The situation worsened that evening at Soho House in Austin, when Kanye launched into a racist rant about Jewish people and made derogatory remarks about Pete Davidson, who was dating Kim at the time. "He was having this rant about Jewish people, black people being the first Jewish people, and telling people that Pete Davidson had AIDS," Pierre recalls. "It was sickening." The pressure to comply with Kanye’s increasingly offensive requests escalated, and soon he was having Laurence Chandler request Pierre to create a "Pete Davidson has AIDS" “Pete Davidson hates black people” and “Pete Davidson destroys families” shirts. "I had to fight because I didn't want to do it," Pierre says, "But there was pressure from five people in the group chat who would dip in and out, like Bianca, and I was like, ‘No, I’m not doing this.’" Pierre stood his ground, refusing to design the shirt, but he knew the atmosphere had become increasingly toxic.

Texts from Kanye West’s General Manager to YEEZY Senior Designer Pierre Louis Auvray in a group chat with Kanye requesting a “Pete Davidson Has AIDS” shirt be made

A few weeks later, just before Thanksgiving, everything came crashing down. Bianca, along with the entire architecture team, was suddenly fired. According to YEEZY staffers, Kim Kardashian had allegedly discovered Kanye’s affair with Bianca while they were married, leading to the termination of the entire team.

That night, as the fallout from Bianca & the architecture team’s sudden firing spread through YEEZY, the design team exchanged frantic texts wondering who would be next.

At the same time Pierre alleges one of the YEEZY staffers close to Bianca, who did not return a request for comment, attended a house party in the hills, where she allegedly witnessed Censori chillingly telling guests

“I’m going to cancel Kanye West”

To be continued.