Kanye West and wife Bianca Censori’s latest publicity stunt certainly attracted attention – but not for the right reasons
Does the sight of a naked woman in public make you angry? Sunday night was certainly a test, when scandal-hit US rapper Kanye West’s wife, Bianca Censori, stripped at the Grammys.
But thinking about it in the cold light of morning, of all the reactions to the couple’s latest publicity stunt, outrage is the one I understand least.
“They deserve jail!” people ranted on X, after images and videos of the 30-year-old Australian model shedding her fur coat on the red carpet to reveal a completely see-through mesh dress went live on Sunday. “Lock them up.” “Every single time I have seen Kanye’s wife naked, it was against my will.” “Feel like I’ve just been sexually harassed by these two.” “An unbelievable level of degeneracy!”
Is it, though? “Unbelievable”, I mean? I’d say it was predictable to the point of extreme tedium – to the point of audible, mass groans; to the point of collective sighs of exhaustion; to the sounds of a million foreheads hitting keyboards as we’re all assailed by those images. In fact, I’m amazed it took Censori this long to divest herself of her last shreds of clothing.
Since marrying West in 2022, the self-styled “visual artist” has routinely appeared at events with her assets exposed through backless, frontless, sideless variations on body stockings, and although this was the first time that her genitalia were clearly visible, neither of these two appear to have understood that, as a tool, provocation must be used sparingly – or it stops working. That the attention economy cannibalises itself. And boy, have we reached peak provocation.
Far more troubling to me than Censori’s unprivate parts are the words 47-year-old West says to his wife just before the ceremonial dropping of the coat. According to a lip reader, the rapper murmurs: “Make a scene, I’ll say it’ll make so much sense,” as the photographers begin to snap away. Censori nods her head in agreement, before West goes on: “Drop it behind you and then turn, I got you.”
However this comes to be passed off – and stand by for the bilge, the “statement of feminist empowerment”, the stand Censori is making “against women being judged on their clothing” – this in fact looks like an abusive relationship playing out right in front of us. Although this won’t be a popular view, I’d also ask who might be abusing who. We know that West is mentally ill. This is not an opinion, but a fact. He was hospitalised for a psychiatric emergency in 2016 and has spoken openly about his bipolar disorder. But we don’t know what Censori’s mental state is: she might be entirely lucid and cynically capitalising on her 15 minutes, or indeed a victim of coercive control.
“Custom Couture Grammy dress for the most beautiful woman ever,” West later captioned an image of Censori’s (non) dress on Instagram, writing: “My best friend My wife.” But the words are as empty as the pose, the stunt, the provocation – the only obvious question now: Where do you go from here?
