Kanye West Sued by L.A. Mission Volunteer Over Video of Skid Row Rant
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When Kanye West grabbed the mic at a Thanksgiving event serving homeless people on Los Angeles’ Skid Row two years ago, Elijah Graham was there to film it.
Now Graham, who was working as a volunteer event planner at the Los Angeles Mission at the time, is suing the “Believe What I Say” rapper for allegedly posting the video to Instagram without permission.
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In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles on Tuesday and obtained by Rolling Stone, Graham says he created the video on Nov. 24, 2021, with the hope of making money. He claims West illegally captured his profits when the video went viral, driving traffic to West’s Instagram account and increasing West’s revenue on the platform.
Now he wants West to pay him back. His lawsuit seeks an injunction and “actual damages and disgorgement of all of defendant’s profits attributable to the infringement.”
In the video, West laments the breakup of his marriage to Kim Kardashian and suggests it might be saved by divine intervention.
“The narrative that God wants is for you to see that everything can be redeemed,” he says, according to a copy of the video apparently licensed to People.
“In all these relationships, we’ve made mistakes. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve publicly done things that were not acceptable as a husband. But right now, today, for whatever reason — I didn’t know I was going to be standing right here, I didn’t know I was going to be in front of this mic — but I’m here to change that narrative. I’m not letting E! write the narrative of my family,” he continues, referring to the network that originated Kardashian’s hit reality show.
“I am the priest of my home. I have to be next to my children as much as possible,” he says. “If the enemy can separate Kimye, there’s going to be millions of families that feel like that separation is okay. But when the kingdom, when God… brings Kimye together, there’s going to be millions of families that are going to be influenced to see that they can overcome the the separation, the trauma that the devil has used to capitalize to keep people in misery while people step over homeless people to go to the Gucci store.”
Lawyers representing West in a separate civil litigation in Los Angeles did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Graham’s lawsuit Tuesday.
A year after his Thanksgiving visit, West purportedly sent his team back to Skid Row to hand out “White Lives Matter” shirts.
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