A model who is suing Kanye West has told the BBC she was left feeling “suffocated, unsure and scared” after the rapper allegedly choked her with both hands and put his fingers in her mouth to simulate oral sex while she was working on a music video shoot in New York — in an encounter his lawyers claim was an “intense and provocative theatrical performance.”
Jennifer An, a former contestant on America’s Next Top Model, told the BBC’s Fame Under Fire podcast that the alleged assault took place in 2010 at the Chelsea Hotel in New York, where she had been hired as a model for a US music video for La Roux’s hit In For The Kill. An said she had no idea West would be on set when she arrived for the shoot.
She told presenter Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty that the crew suddenly stopped work and began rushing around the hotel shouting “Kanye’s coming, Kanye’s coming.” Models were then lined up in the hallway and West selected three of them to appear in a scene with him, including An. After struggling to remember his lines, An alleges West repositioned himself behind the camera facing her, gave her no direction and told her to sit in a chair.
“All of a sudden he just reaches a hand out and starts choking me, and I’m just not sure what’s happening,” she told the BBC. “And then, he pulled his other hand out and starts choking me with both hands, and then starts smearing my makeup all over my face and sticking his hands inside of my mouth.” She said the way West used his hands in her mouth simulated oral sex, adding: “I feel like he was trying to touch as much as he could.” She said a large number of people were on set and none of them intervened — they were “so still and just there, staring at me.”
An said she froze and did not attempt to stop him. “I was more frozen, it’s like ‘I could lose my job’,” she explained. The encounter ended when West announced “this is art, I’m Picasso,” before abruptly leaving.
After the shoot, An said she spoke to La Roux — real name Elly Jackson — who apologised. An asked her not to release the footage, and Jackson agreed. When An contacted Jackson via Instagram in 2024 to confirm her recollection of events, the singer replied that she could “never forget that, it was horrific,” adding that West had whispered to her afterwards: “I bet you think I just put women back about 10 years.” Jackson told him: “You just put women back about 500 years.” Those Instagram messages have been submitted to the court as corroborating evidence, the BBC reports.
West’s lawyers do not deny the encounter took place, but argue it constituted a theatrical performance intended as a homage to the film American Psycho, and that An was “a consenting participant in the stage performance” who did not object or attempt to leave. They have filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing West is protected by the First Amendment as the encounter took place in the course of producing expressive art.
An’s lawyer, Jesse Weinstein, told Fame Under Fire that accepting such an argument would set “a really dangerous precedent” allowing artists to “do whatever they want, to whomever they want, in creative spaces, and get away with it as long as they call it art.”
An filed her civil lawsuit under New York City’s Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Act in 2024, which temporarily extends the statute of limitations for sexual assault survivors. The case has not yet gone to trial. The BBC said it had contacted Universal Music Group, La Roux’s record label, for comment, and had asked West to clarify whether he explained his intentions to An before the alleged encounter, but had not received a response.
