Kanye West celebrated his wife Bianca Censori’s thirtieth birthday this weekend with a lavish party in the Maldives. The overseas festivities are quickly becoming a natural for the eccentric couple, who have spent the past few months in Tokyo as Ye continues to face mounting legal troubles in the US.
The Australian architect celebrated her milestone birthday at a luxury island destination on Sunday. In photos and videos shared at the event, Censori was seen wearing a black bodysuit with a plunging neckline, while her rapper husband donned an all-black suit jacket and pants.
The ‘Gold Digger’ artist, 47, shared a passionate kiss with Censori next to what appeared to be a huge traditional wedding cake – even climbing a white ladder to pack on the PDA for their guests.
Censori also hit the dance floor with her friends, including Oscar-winning actress Penelope Cruz and Australian basketball star Elizabeth Cambage.
Of course, West’s four children who he shares with ex-wife Kim Kardashian were absent from the festivities: North, 11, Saint, nine, Chicago, six, and Psalm, five. The Skims founder has even gone so far as to label herself as a “single parent” nearly four years after her divorce from West was finalized.
Since then, the Yeezy designer was infamously banned from the entertainment industry after an anti-Semitic tirade and has become the focus of lawsuits accusing him of rape, sexual harassment and facilitating a hostile workplace.
Despite West’s mounting legal troubles, the couple – who married in January 2023 – recently put on a happy face during a trip through the Japanese capital.
But are the couple’s new, playful ways just a facade to escape the legal drama that awaits him in the US? Or does West have legitimate concerns about his safety upon his return to American soil?
Kanye West, 47, and Bianca Censori, 30, share a steamy kiss at the Australian architect’s birthday party
Censori dons a black bodysuit with a plunging neckline for a star-studded birthday party
Censori shares photos from her 30th birthday on the island in the Maldives
West, at home in California, awaits a tense lawsuit from an ex-assistant
Lauren Pisciotta, an influencer and former OnlyFans personality, filed a lawsuit against West in June, accusing him of stalking and sexually harassing her while she was employed by him in 2021 and 2022. West has denied the allegations, calling them “baseless” and, in turn, accusing her of “blackmail and extortion.”
However, it appeared that West’s denial was not enough to stop the legal process. In November, Pisciotta’s lawyer Mark Koorenny accused the rapper of “evading” the trial by traveling through Tokyo.
The updated document stated that the disgraced rapper was “out of the country” and “evading court service,” which stalled the progress of the case.
Koorenny has even suggested that West be served by publication, which would involve publishing the lawsuit in a newspaper or elsewhere so that the suspect is likely to see it or be notified by someone who does.
Although some courts are reluctant to allow such measures, it is likely that the court will allow it, taking into account the high-profile suspect. They requested a 60-day continuation to publicize the lawsuit and expected to complete discovery and depositions by October of this year.
The filing noted that all of West’s Yeezy companies, which are based in the US and have been sued along with the rapper himself, have been served and that a plea deal was expected shortly after December 3 – although a plea deal has yet to be revealed .
The rapper has been locked up in a luxury hotel room in Japan for several months
These days, the ‘Donda’ rapper has made quite a home for himself in Japan, where he is reportedly living in a luxurious hotel room in Tokyo recording his upcoming album, Bully.
West and Censori stepped into a Tokyo mall last November wearing matching white ensembles
West has been waging a “war with the paparazzi” for years, most recently being sued by a female photographer after an altercation in January 2023
While some fans may think West has moved to Japan’s capital to avoid his legal troubles, others have suggested it’s because he’s now had enough of the paparazzi in Los Angeles.
“They are hunted when they are in the United States, and they never really feel safe,” a source exclusively told DailyMail.com. “The United States is the only country Kanye is in where he’s constantly getting into fights that are getting him into trouble.”
‘He’s just fed up with people invading his space and when they’re abroad this doesn’t happen. People respect him more,” the insider added.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Kanye’s representatives for comment.
The father of four children has been waging a ‘war with the paparazzi’ for years. In June 2023, West was sued by a female photographer for alleged assault, battery and negligence after he threw her phone into the street following a confrontation in January that year.
‘I think Japan is good for him. In LA he is at war with the paparazzi. He doesn’t like the paparazzi,” a friend of Kanye told music journalist Touré in October, according to Touré’s Substack.
‘In Japan he has a different level of peace of mind, which obviously means he can make really good music. Because your mind is at ease. Your mind is at rest. You’re not paranoid about anything,” another friend said.
West and Censori bought the Beverly Hills mansion for $35 million in a ‘last ditch effort’ to save the marriage
Nevertheless, the ‘Bound 2’ rapper’s peace bubble could soon come to an end. In October, West bought a $35 million mansion in Los Angeles’s opulent Beverly Hills neighborhood, even plundering his retirement using high-risk mortgage lenders.
The couple closed on the home, which contains 11 bedrooms and 18 bathrooms, through their joint firm Shore Drive Holdings LLC. Sources claimed that he bought the mansion as a last-ditch effort to save his marriage, as Censori was tired of wandering aimlessly through the world and wanted to be ‘grounded’.
West and Censori recently purchased a $35 million mansion in Beverly Hills because Censori was tired of wandering aimlessly through the world and wanted to be “grounded.”
The lavish home, which has Adele and Justin Bieber as neighbors, features 11 bedrooms and 18 bathrooms
West is said to have raided his pension pot and used high-risk mortgage lenders to finance the recent purchase
Although West’s high-profile neighbors include Adele and Justin Bieber, it’s likely the couple will instead use the home as an investment property to rent out.
A source says the couple’s concerns about their safety have only escalated since they “no longer have a home base” and West “emptied his homes and traded his properties.”
“This has gotten worse since he started dating Bianca and he doesn’t want anything to happen to her,” she added. “Sometimes it gets scary for them and the best way for them not to have to deal with this is to just not be where it’s happening.”
Pisciotta’s rape and sexual harassment allegations aren’t the only harrowing accusations the Grammy-winning rapper is facing. The former OnlyFans model’s most serious claim was that he drugged and raped her years before she worked for him – and allegedly only admitted to it in his final weeks as her boss.
Pisciotta reportedly met West when he invited her client, a musician, to a studio session and party he was hosting with his friend, disgraced music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.
In the filing, the model alleged that West gave her a drink and after a few sips “she suddenly began to feel disoriented and…began to enter an altered and very disturbed state.”
‘She had less control over her body and speech and that is true [her] memories of the night escape her,” the lawsuit said.
The next day she felt “embarrassed and ashamed” because she could not remember the evening and her musician client refused to discuss what had happened.
Pisciotta claimed she didn’t learn until years later why her client was “too traumatized and disturbed to talk about that night.”
The same month that his ex-assistant filed the updated filing, West became the subject of another lawsuit accusing him and Ty Dolla $ign of copyright infringement. A group of Memphis rappers claimed that the song “Fuk Sumn” from the rappers’ collaborative album Vultures 1 sampled their work without proper credit or compensation.
Just weeks later, West was accused of “gagging” and strangling America’s Next Top Model alumna Jenn An until she blacked out in a federal lawsuit. In the suit against West and Universal Music Group, An alleged that West “smothered” her face with his hands and “gagged her to simulate forced oral sex” during a 2010 music video shoot.
West has not yet publicly responded to the allegations, but the future of the once-acclaimed musician is still up in the air. If history is to be believed, hopping from one island destination to another bustling Asian metropolis may not be enough to avoid the countless legal battles knocking on its door.