Kanye West Sued for Alleged ‘Cowardly’ Punch at L.A. Restaurant

Kanye West is accused in a new lawsuit of sucker-punching a man at a Los Angeles restaurant — then beating the man as he lay unconscious on the concrete floor two years ago.

The plaintiff, suing as a John Doe over “credible security concerns” and to avoid “further reputational harm,” says he was sitting with his brother in the private venue’s outdoor garden when West, now known as Ye, allegedly blindsided him with a blow around 11 p.m. on April 16, 2024.

“Without warning, defendant punched plaintiff in the face. The punch knocked plaintiff to the ground where he hit his head and lost consciousness,” the complaint filed Monday in Los Angeles and obtained by Rolling Stone, reads. “Defendant then repeatedly punched plaintiff as he lay unconscious on the ground, with the intent to cause physical harm.”

The lawsuit claims the “cowardly attack” was “shocking, physically harmful, and offensive.” The man says Ye showed malice by allegedly punching him while he was out cold and deciding “to flee to the protection of his security detail, leaving plaintiff injured and unconscious on the concrete floor.” The man says he needed medical treatment afterward.

The filing hints at a prior interaction involving a woman in Ye’s entourage but offers few details. It insists neither the plaintiff nor his brother did anything to trigger the alleged violence.

“Plaintiff did nothing at all to provoke it,” the filing states. “Plaintiff’s brother did not engage in any offensive or inappropriate conduct toward any woman in defendant’s party earlier that evening, or at any time. This is not a case of mistaken identity in which defendant attacked the wrong brother. Neither brother engaged in any wrongful conduct at any time.”

In the days after the incident, the lawsuit claims, Ye “falsely accused” the plaintiff of inappropriate conduct with the woman and then “repeated and embellished these lies” on a widely viewed podcast, fueling “public scorn, suspicion, and ridicule.”

The lawsuit says evidence, “including video recordings from the scene, proves that plaintiff did not engage in any inappropriate or offensive conduct with a woman in defendant’s party, or anyone else.” The man says the dissemination of the “falsehoods, made with reckless disregard for the devastating impact they would have on plaintiff’s personal, professional and emotional well-being, constitutes extreme and outrageous conduct beyond all bounds of decency tolerated in a civilized society.”

Lawyers for the John Doe and Ye’s spokesman, Milo Yiannopoulos, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Earlier this month, Ye, 48, played two comeback concerts at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., marking his first U.S. arena shows in five years. In January, Ye took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal, apologizing for antisemitic remarks. Last month, a Los Angeles jury awarded a man $140,000 for injuries he suffered while gutting the rapper-producer’s $57 million Malibu beach home, which was designed by Pritzker Prize–winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando. After the house was stripped of plumbing, toilets, fixtures, cabinets, electricity, a concrete fireplace, and two custom chimney stacks, Ye sold the property for $21 million, a steep loss, in September 2024.