Model suing Kanye West says he choked her on 2010 music video set

A model who alleges Kanye West choked her on a music video set has told the BBC she felt "suffocated, unsure and scared."

Jennifer An, a former contestant on America's Next Top Model, is suing the rapper, now known as Ye, over an encounter she says took place in 2010. She told the BBC's Fame Under Fire podcast that West choked her and put his fingers in her mouth to simulate oral sex while filming a sequence for a music video in which he made a cameo appearance.

Lawyers for the rapper do not deny the encounter took place, but have argued it was part of an "intense and provocative theatrical performance" meant to emulate a scene from the film American Psycho.

An was 24 when she was hired to appear in the U.S. music video for La Roux's song In For The Kill. She said she did not know West would be on set. When she arrived at the Chelsea Hotel in New York, she alleges West took over the shoot and assaulted her.

An said the crew stopped work and began running around the hotel, shouting that Kanye was coming. The models were lined up in the hallway, and West chose three of them, including An, to appear in the scene with him.

After he could not remember his lines, An alleges West stopped filming and set up a new shot. He placed one chair in front of the camera and sat in another behind it, facing An but out of frame.

"I didn't know what was gonna happen," she said. "I was given no direction. I was just told to sit in this chair."

Once the music started and cameras rolled, An said West reached out and began choking her with one hand, then both hands. She said he smeared her makeup across her face and put his fingers in her mouth in a way that simulated oral sex.

"There were a lot of people on the shoot," she said, but none intervened. The encounter ended when West yelled something like "this is art, I'm Picasso" and left.

An said she did not try to stop him because she felt frozen and feared losing her job. She told the podcast the incident was "scary" and that West did not speak to her before, during or after.

West did not appear in the final version of the video, though he was featured on a remix of the song. An said she later spoke to La Roux, whose real name is Elly Jackson, who apologized and assured her the footage would not be released.

In 2024, An contacted La Roux on Instagram to ask if she remembered the incident. The singer replied that she did and called it "horrific." In the messages, La Roux wrote that West "knew exactly what he was doing" and that he had whispered to her after the shoot, "I bet you think I just put women back about 10 years." La Roux said she responded, "You just put women back about 500 years."

The messages have been submitted to the court as evidence. The case has not gone to trial. West's lawyers filed a motion to dismiss it, arguing the encounter was protected artistic expression under the First Amendment and that An was a consenting participant.

An's lawyer, Jesse Weinstein, told the podcast that allowing artists to claim they can "do whatever they want to, whomever they want in creative spaces" as long as they call it art would set a "really dangerous precedent."