Kanye West is being sued for allegedly assaulting a man who asked him for an autograph in Los Angeles two years ago.
According to documents obtained by The Blast on Tuesday (January 9), Justin Poplawski and his wife Tiffany Marshall retained famed lawyer Gloria Allred to file a suit accusing Ye of assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and loss of consortium (which means loss of sexual relations or the ability to have children).
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As widely reported at the time, the Chicago native allegedly struck Poplawski twice — once in the head and once in the neck — knocking him to the ground on January 13, 2022, near the Soho Warehouse in DTLA.
Poplawski, who refers to himself as a “well-respected autograph dealer,” claims in the docs that he’d previously obtained an autograph from Ye “without incident,” but this time, he shouted, “I’m going to make a fucking example of you” and referenced his “fucking divorce” from Kim Kardashian.
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Poplawski claims Kanye struck him several times, “severely injuring him” while he was “lawfully standing on public property.”
The Poplawskis’ lawsuit amount is not currently reported.
In an interview with Hollywood Unlocked’s Jason Lee shortly after the 2022 incident, Kanye West gave his side of the story and claimed Poplawski gave him “attitude” after he told him it wasn’t a good time.
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“It was 3 a.m. in front of [Soho] Warehouse,” Kanye explained. “I’m saying, ‘You don’t know what I’m dealing with right now.’ I just finished these two songs, I came from the studio … And this dude, he just had this real attitude, like, ‘Whatchu gonna do?'”
He added: “I’ma just tell you, that blue COVID mask ain’t stop that knockout.”
Kanye also gave more context to his emotional outburst that was captured in the video, revealing he had just received bad news from his cousins who had returned from discussing parenting matters with Kim Kardashian.
“So now my cousins are coming back and they have not delivered on it. So I end up getting into an altercation with the guy that wanted to make money off of my autographs,” he explained. “I say, ‘Give me a breather. Get away from me.’
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“She is not taking accountability for the fact that she did not do what she was supposed to do, and that added to me being in a mood where I was like, ‘I am not going to have this.'”
Speaking with Entertainment Tonight, Jason Lee noted that Kanye didn’t admit to punching the man himself.
