{"id":7241,"date":"2025-08-05T09:48:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T09:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/ex-publicist-wants-100k-legal-fee-refund\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T09:48:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T09:48:08","slug":"ex-publicist-wants-100k-legal-fee-refund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/ex-publicist-wants-100k-legal-fee-refund\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Publicist Wants $100K Legal Fee Refund"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tA<\/span> Jewish publicist suing Ye (formerly Kanye West) for antisemitism is demanding that the rapper repay nearly $100,000 incurred by her legal team in fending off a \u201cfrivolous and absurd\u201d motion that argued, unsuccessfully, that artistic freedom allows Ye to call himself a \u201cNazi\u201d and \u201cHitler\u201d with no legal recourse.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe development stems from Ye\u2019s attempt to throw out the antisemitism lawsuit under California\u2019s anti-SLAPP statute, which guards against legal action that threatens free speech. Ye\u2019s attorneys argued that the rapper\u2019s private conversations \u2014 including text messages where he told his Jewish publicist \u201cI am a Nazi\u201d and \u201cWelcome to the first day of working for Hitler\u201d \u2014 are part of a \u201ccontinuous, provocative performance\u201d that amounts to First Amendment-protected artistic expression.<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tA judge summarily rejected this argument in June, saying Ye and his company \u201ccannot insulate themselves from defending against allegations of blatantly antisemitic and misogynous harassment and an unashamedly discriminatory and retaliatory firing of plaintiff by simply claiming that defendant Ye\u2019s every word and action, even in a private workplace, is a work of art.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJudge Theresa M. Traber said Ye\u2019s anti-SLAPP motion was \u201crife with defects, specious arguments and misstatements of law\u201d that suggest the filing was \u201cfrivolous and brought for the purpose of delaying the litigation of this action, rather than to raise serious concerns about free speech.\u201d Therefore, said the judge, the publicist (suing anonymously under the moniker Jane Doe) is entitled to a refund of the legal fees her attorneys racked up defending against this motion.<\/p>\n

\n\tDoe\u2019s lawyers now say in a July 30 motion that these fees amount to $99,720. This figure was calculated using hourly rates for four attorneys at the law firm Shegerian & Associates, which range from $650 to $1,100.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPlaintiff seeks attorney\u2019s fees for 106.7 hours of work, which represents reasonable time actually spent opposing a half-baked anti-SLAPP motion,\u201d says the court filing.<\/p>\n

\n

\n

\t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Kanye<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tReps for Ye did not return a request for comment on Monday (Aug. 4). The rapper\u2019s lawyers are appealing Judge Traber\u2019s decision not to throw out the case under the anti-SLAPP statute.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe publicist\u2019s antisemitism claims are part of a stream of backlash that Ye has faced for his rampant anti-Jewish rhetoric in recent years. He lost much of his once-formidable business empire, including fashion partnerships with Adidas, The Gap and Balenciaga, after a string of antisemitic public comments in 2022. And Ye\u2019s behavior has not changed; earlier this year, he ran a Super Bowl ad that directed viewers to buy shirts emblazoned with swastikas.<\/p>\n

\n\tMeanwhile, Ye is also facing an onslaught of civil lawsuits from multiple former employees who claim they were mistreated by the rapper. In one notable case, a former assistant alleges Ye trafficked and sexually assaulted her. \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Jewish publicist suing Ye (formerly Kanye West) for antisemitism is demanding that the rapper repay nearly $100,000 incurred by her legal team in fending off a \u201cfrivolous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1055,6593,717,136,6594],"class_list":["post-7241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-100k","tag-expublicist","tag-fee","tag-legal","tag-refund"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}