Degrading or empowering? Kanye West and the dark side of the Bianca Censori Grammy dress controversy

The Grammys took place last Sunday, but Kendrick Lamar’s massive, Drake-ending sweep and Beyoncé’s Album of the Year win have been overshadowed by Kanye ‘Ye’ West and his wife Bianca Censori’s red carpet fashion stunt. 

The musical achievement-quashing moment happened when a stone-faced and fully clothed Ye loomed over the 30-year-old Australian model as she dropped her large fur coat to reveal a skin-tight, see-through outfit − essentially exposing her entire naked body. Literally nothing was left to the imagination. 

The internet went wild. Some saw a reference to his 'Vultures' album cover; others casually dismissed it as Ye being Ye and the whole thing being “performance art”; and more concerned social media users expressed outrage. 

“This is crazy... This isn’t haute couture. This isn’t fashion," wrote one social media user, while another posted: "If someone doesn’t consent to seeing you naked….That is called INDECENT EXPOSURE and it is a CRIME. I never consented to seeing this woman naked and I’m sure a lot of people with their children watching didn’t either. This is really disturbing."

There won’t be any legal fallout from the Grammys stunt as the annual awards ceremony is a private event and no one from the show contacted police to make a complaint. 

Ye has spoken up on X about the NSFW dress, praising his “smart, talented, brave and hot” wife. He added: “People asked how would your mother feel. You don’t know my mama bitch.” He also defended the move in a string of Instagram stories – in which he shared screenshots of Google search trends (with more than five million searches for his Censori’s name) and the caption “WE BEAT THE GRAMMIES”.

Granted, it’s no secret that both Ye and Censori use their public appearances as theatrical showcases, playing up to the paparazzi and aiming for scandalous statements. It’s essentially their brand, and Censori has been photographed countless times wearing barely-there outfits in public.

Most of the time it comes off as desperate shock tactics to make the headlines; sometimes it results in legal repercussions – like last year in Venice with the water taxi fiasco, and in France where she risked jail time for shopping around in Paris wearing nothing but a pair of sheer tights.

Only last month, Ye shared a picture of Censori in the kitchen wearing a see-through bodysuit and a black latex mask over her head. The image received widespread criticism from his followers.

“Your posts are disturbing,” wrote one follower, while others expressed fear that Censori was being robbed of her agency.

With their past antics in mind, the Grammy stunt becomes obvious, bordering on banal: the goal was clearly to draw attention to themselves. And they’ve won.

However, the stunt has prompted a larger conversation about the control Ye has over his wife's fashion choices.

These concerns doubled when the controversial rapper dropped hints that the useless dress could soon be up for sale for hundreds of dollars via his brand Yeezy. Censori’s other see-through Grammy evening leotard (see below) is already available to buy on the Yeezy website. 

So if this was mere attention-seeking behaviour doubling up as a shameless promotional tactic, then why the hubbub? People should be allowed to wear whatever they want in that “If you’ve got it flaunt it” way, and shouldn’t the criticism instead be aimed at the puritan takes from conservative pundits like Meghan McCain, for instance?

In a now-deleted post to X shared by Deadline, McCain wrote: “He’s (West) a repugnant, vile piece of garbage, and his wife looks like a victim and hostage.”

Tell us what you really think, Meghan.

After all, models, musicians and actresses have embraced revealing outfits before. Rose McGowan famously attended the MTV Video Music Awards in 1998 wearing next to nothing; Rihanna left little to the imagination in 2014 at the CFDA Awards – to name but those two examples.

In these instances, the bold fashion statements were seen as just that. Sure, the nudity prompted some pearl clutching, but many rightfully saw them as a cause for celebration, showing women taking control of their bodies and expressing their sexual empowerment through fashion.

The almighty snag, however, is that context is all-important - as nothing takes place in a vacuum.

Bold fashion statements prompt discussions about the policing of women’s bodies, but when they are put into context, they can rightfully be percieved as troubling.

Ye has a reputation for controlling behaviour, with his ex-partners Kim Kardashian, Julia Fox and Amber Rose all sharing how the rapper exercised control over their wardrobes. Fox wrote in her memoir “Down The Drain” that she felt like a “show monkey”, while an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians showed Kanye clearing out Kim's wardrobe in the early stages of their relationship.

Incidents like these exacerbate assumptions that the musician uses his partners as props, and the image of a concealed Ye and a practically nude Censori on the Grammys red carpet comes off as problematically gendered and potentially coercive.

Add to this that Ye has a long history of volatile and odious behaviour.

Whether it’s antisemitism, the alleged degrading treatment of employees and sexual harassment of his former personal assistant, as well as being sued for allegedly choking a model and subjecting her to “pornographic gagging”, Ye is problematic to say the very least. With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that Censori’s naked dress comes off as an attention-shifting tactic. Essentially: The once-cancelled figure dominates headlines again by using his partner’s body, while conveniently affirming some sort of alpha male identity.

This read isn’t helped by the fact that Censori doesn’t seem to have a voice.

The model does not give interviews, and all the public has are revealing snaps of her on Ye’s Instagram feed and a bombardment of suggestive pics during award ceremonies. Censori's silence leads to much speculation about her well-being. Should she choose to even briefly comment about her involvement in choreographed stunts, and concern could die down.

While all people can do is speculate on the pair’s attention-craving behaviour and the potential darkness behind it, the viral Grammy red carpet moment also came during Donald Trump’s still young second term as president, with discriminatory gender politics at the heart of his policies. Again, context matters.  

At the end of the day, whether or not you subscribe to the rapper exerting his potentially toxic power over Censori and the latter needing to be saved, one thing is clear: Ye is clearly exerting his dominance over the headlines.