Going into Sunday night’s 2025 Grammy Awards, Kanye West wasn’t a lot within the dialog regardless of his nomination for greatest rap music. However even because the present wrapped up with out him successful, the infamous music and style provocateur managed to seize headlines for as soon as once more utilizing his spouse’s bare physique to execute a red-carpet stunt.
As West has completed many instances earlier than prior to now couple years, he acquired his reported spouse, Bianca Censori, to go undressed, or practically so, in public, as a way to invite shock, alarm and commentary.
Censori really arrived on the crimson carpet absolutely lined in a black fur coat. West, in the meantime, additionally was dressed head-to-toe in a black T-shirt, pants and sun shades. A report by the Each day Mail, citing a lip-reading skilled, mentioned that West commanded Censori to drop her coat. He informed her to begin “making a scene now.” After she initially balked, she relented after he informed her, “Drop it behind you and then turn, I got you.”
“All right, let’s go,” Censori reportedly mentioned. When she dropped her coat, she revealed that she was carrying a mini-dress that regarded like a sheer stocking. It left little to the creativeness.
Whereas there have been conflicting reviews about whether or not West and Censori had been escorted from the ceremony, or left on their very own accord, some writers lamented that the main target of the Grammys ought to have been much less on West and extra on younger feminine performers, akin to Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, “planting their flag as the future of this industry,” or on Beyonce’s historic win for album of the yr.
Unable to disregard West and Censori’s stunt, style writers and cultural critics had been left to ponder the rapper’s intentions, inventive or in any other case, to stage one more provocation involving Censori’s physique. In addition they speculated on how a lot his 30-year-old companion continues to be a keen participant in what The Minimize known as “some kind of humiliation kink for her husband.” Because the Washington Submit’s fashion writers additionally famous, West isn’t identified to be a mentally nicely human being, having been identified with bipolar dysfunction and identified for his public meltdowns and his antisemitic rants.
There’s one factor style writers may agree on: Censori’s outfit, such because it was, wasn’t essentially that outlandish or excessive, on condition that the “naked dress” has turn into an eyebrow-raising fixture on the Met Gala, awards present crimson carpets and style runways prior to now yr, CNN reported. Celebrities akin to Dojo Cat, Elle Fanning, Charli XCX, Charlize Theron and West’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian have all worn their model of a unadorned gown. However CNN writers Leah Dolan and Oscar Holland additionally requested whether or not Censori’s tiny, sheer gown Sunday night time went from a “naked dress” to her being simply plain bare.
Washington Submit fashion writers Shane O’Neill and Anne Branigin additionally opined that the true provocation in Censori’s show is likely to be “the power dynamics.” The “obscenity” of the show was the “juxtaposition of Kanye’s coverage versus Bianca’s nakedness,” Branigan mentioned.
“Even the sunglasses he was wearing — standard for him and a lot men on red carpets — seemed like a statement next to her nudity,” Branigan mentioned. “What’s weird about this discourse to me is that even if it’s ostensibly about Bianca’s outfit, she seems almost like an afterthought.”
O’Neill mentioned that West is likely to be making an announcement, nevertheless muddled, about “the dynamic that you see up and down red carpets and in the entertainment industry: men can be neutral, women are offered up for consumption.”
Branigan added that West has himself participated on this dynamic through the years, together with with Kardashian and his ex-girlfriends Amber Fox and Julia Rose. At occasions, he has been lined up head-to-toe, whereas accompanying a scantily clad lady, who additionally occurs to be lighter-skinned. “Kanye’s oeuvre — his music, his interviews, his public appearances — have shown us that he’s very conscious of racial dynamics, but he’s also fixated on them in an explicitly sexual way,” Branigan mentioned.
In the meantime, Censori stays a little bit of a cipher, even a non-entity besides in her relationship to West, in response to Branigan.
“Come to think of it, I don’t know if I can conjure up an image of what Bianca looks like alone,” Branigan mentioned. “She’s always by Kanye’s side. In the public eye, she is always always, always in relationship to Kanye.”
The world first heard about Censori in December 2022, a month after West’s divorce from Kardashian was finalized, The Minimize reported. West shared a observe to Instagram known as “Censori Overload,” implying that some lady named Censori had grew to become his newest muse.
Censori and West had been first photographed collectively in January 2023, with TMZ initially figuring out her as a “mystery woman” and The Minimize noting that she was extra lined up and dressed usually in these early photographs. Censori’s LinkedIn web page mentioned that she graduated from the College of Melbourne with a grasp’s diploma in structure and started working for West’s design firm, Yeezy, as “an architectural designer” in November 2020, The Minimize reported. It’s not clear if she ever really labored as an architect, however the New Yorker reported in 2024 that she was working for West in some capability in a narrative that examined his damaging transform of an iconic Malibu seashore house.
In the meantime, again in early 2023, reviews started to recommend that the 2 had married in “some sort of wedding ceremony,” with the Each day Mail finally confirming in October of that yr that that they had in actual fact gotten legally married, although their marriage license is “confidential,” The Minimize mentioned.
That summer time, West and Censori started seeking to garner consideration for what seemed to be his styling of her in sheer body-stockings and different outfits that had been fairly revealing, The Minimize reported. West’s alleged style selections for Censori reportedly prompted an indignant response from Kardashian, who informed West “to never let Bianca dress like” that round their 4 kids, the Each day Mail reported in February 2024. To Censori’s credit score, she has solely ever been photographed with West’s younger kids, “almost always comically covered up” in trench coats or fur hats, The Minimize mentioned.
However Censori’s public shows of near-nudity additionally reportedly prompted alarm from her family and friends in Australia over the previous two years. In interviews with the Each day Mail and The Solar, sources near Censori expressed concern about West’s “controlling ways,” together with about what she ate. Pals informed the Each day Mail saying they staged an intervention to persuade her to depart him, whereas a supply informed The Solar: “He is a very difficult person to be around and work for, and Bianca has been one of the most patient people ever to deal with him.”
However as a lot as they’ve been the topic of breakup rumors in current months, their Grammy Awards look makes it appear like their relationship is again on observe, alongside together with her public shows of nakedness.
