Kanye West Changed His Number and Ghosted Lawyers: Court Filings

• Lawyers who repped Ye aka Kanye West still can’t reach him, they said in court filings.
• The rapper changed his phone numbers and seems to have fled his previous addresses.
• Lawyers want to serve him with papers by publishing classified ads in LA-based newspapers.

Kanye West’s former lawyers still can’t get in touch with him, they said in court filings.

The rapper, who goes by Ye, changed the phone number he used to communicate with his lawyers. In order to reach him, the lawyers are asking a judge if they can publish classified advertisements in Los Angeles-based newspapers.

Ye is being sued by a recording label that claims he stole a song sample on his latest album. He’s now at risk of losing the case through default judgment.

Ye’s former lawyers at Greenberg Traurig explained their predicament in a court filing Friday.

“GT also tried to contact Ye directly via the last known cell phone number GT had to arrange for personal service,” the lawyers at Greenberg Traurig wrote in the filing. “This was also unsuccessful, as Ye has apparently deactivated the phone number previously used to contact him.”

The attorneys abandoned Ye following a series of antisemitic tirades he made last year. On November 2, they asked judges in multiple cases where they represented him if they could withdraw. A representative for the firm previously told Insider in a statement that it condemns “antisemitism and all hate speech or bigotry, which is repugnant to the core values we believe in and live.”

The timing was bad for Ye. Just days earlier, US District Judge Analisa Torres, who is presiding over the case in a federal court in Manhattan, had ordered both sides to prepare for a trial after they failed to reach a settlement. The company Ultra International Music Publishing alleges Ye stole elements from the 1986 Marshall Jefferson song “Move Your Body” — also known as “The House Music Anthem” — for his song “Flowers,” which is reportedly about his ex-wife Kim Kardashian.

Torres ultimately permitted the attorneys at Greenberg Traurig to exit the case. But she required them to serve Ye with her order telling him he needs to either get new lawyers or represent himself in the case.

For weeks, the lawyers at Greenberg Traurig have struggled to contact Ye. He stopped answering his phone and no longer appears to reside at addresses previously associated with him, they said in court filings. They asked Torres if they could serve him with her order through a text message, but she said no.

In Friday’s filing, the lawyers say that Ye changed his phone number. They asked for a third extension to use what’s called service by publication, which involves publishing the judge’s order in two Los Angeles newspapers and hoping Ye sees it. 

The lawyers at Greenberg Traurig aren’t the only ones having trouble getting in touch with Ye. In a separate case in a California state court in Los Angeles, lawyers for his former business management firm, Thomas St. John, have said they’ve spent weeks trying to track him down for a lawsuit over unpaid bills.

In the Friday filing, the lawyers at Greenberg Traurig said they have spoken to the lawyers for Thomas St. John about their shared predicament.

“GT has contacted counsel for the plaintiff in Thomas St. John, who has confirmed that they have yet to accomplish service,” they wrote.