First Kim Kardashian, now Bianca Censori: How Kanye West uses fashion to subjugate the women in his life
If there’s one woman who knows how to pull focus on the red carpet, it’s Bianca Censori. The Australian model has always pushed the envelope regarding fashion but her recent look at the 2025 Grammy Awards had me (along with the rest of the internet) feeling all kinds of uncomfortable. While I’m typically always here for both tasteful and distasteful nudity, Censori’s barely there look—coupled with her husband Kanye West’s hella-creepy demeanour—prompted a lot of netizens to express their concern for Censori’s welfare.
Welcome back to Explained By a Blonde girlies. The 2025 Grammys had many pinch-me moments—some good ones like Beyoncé finally getting her flowers and winning album of the year, and some bad ones like Benson Boone doing the absolute most onstage and successfully irritating an entire crowd. But the main takeaway we all got from Monday night’s spectacle is that Kanye West’s tight grip on Bianca Censori’s public persona is getting increasingly worrying.
Being outrageous in public is nothing new for West and Censori. I know I’m not the only one who was gagged over their little sexual indiscretion on that gondola in Venice. With each stunt, society has become more and more convinced that Censori has little to zero creative control or autonomy over these performances. Plus, it’s never Ye who’s getting naked and acting submissive for the sake of views, it’s his wife.
So, what is actually going on in this marriage? And given what we know about West’s fixation with power and control, should there be a greater push for intervention?
Is Bianca Censori okay?
Bianca Censori married Kanye (Ye) West in December 2022 and the pair immediately began making headlines weekly. Censori, who has always been daring with her fashion, began attending events and being spotted in public in very little clothing—a creative decision many believe was almost entirely spearheaded by her husband.
West would typically always be in all black while Censori would be sporting a sheer transparent raincoat or rocking a pillow as a dress. While I wasn’t exactly desperate to see the rapper’s naked torso, seeing him in a full outfit, and therefore a position of strength, while his partner stood solemnly beside him in a state of vulnerability felt a lot like watching excessive coercive control play out in real-time.
For a while, some people found the whole thing amusing. Posts on X would read: ‘Oh, Bianca has her tits out again—classic’. But as it kept going and intimate things about the couple’s relationship began to surface, all of a sudden, it wasn’t that funny anymore.
I’ve seen Bianca Censori naked more than I’ve seen myself naked.
— ɴᴏ ᴄᴜᴛs ɴᴏ ʙᴜᴛs ɴᴏ ᴄᴏᴄᴏɴᴜᴛs (@damn_elle) February 3, 2025
Back in 2023, an unknown source told the Daily Mail that West had a strict “list of rules” Censori had to abide by. The rules instruct Censori to “never speak” and only eat specific foods that have been approved by West beforehand.
News also later emerged in 2024 of serious sexual allegations against the ‘Famous’ artist. The lawsuit in question claimed that West strangled a model on a music video set in 2010 and shoved his fingers in her mouth in what the suit refers to as “pornographic gagging.”
All this, coupled with a noticeable shift in Censori’s public demeanour, prompted fans to express serious concern for the model online:
OMG! 🫣
Someone stage an intervention!
This is coercive, controlling behaviour, for real
What on EARTH has he said / done to Bianca Censori to make her do this? 👀
This is NOT ‘gleeful, attention-seeking exhibitionism’ on her part
She looks terrified— *🪬* (@_______0______) February 3, 2025
the problem with Bianca Censori being nude in public is not that it causes nudity to exist on television, but that her partner is a man with a pattern of controlling his partners, including strictly dictating what they wear, and so she is constantly seen silent and naked https://t.co/YUPw99zPix
— jew lawyer (@dj_CISWOMAN) February 3, 2025
idgaf about bianca censori being naked igaf about her looking empty and docile to a concerning degree. i just can’t help but feel like she’s being exploited
— ŠUND ✭ (@schundkomisija) February 3, 2025
We all remember how West used fashion to control his ex-wife Kim Kardashian. All you have to do is rewatch certain episodes of Keeping Up With the Kardashians to see plain as day that the musician displayed clear signs of toxic behaviour.
remember when kanye said kim dressed too provocatively? perfect example of a man who just wants to control you. wanted kim to put on more clothes but forces his current wife to be naked on a red carpet
— bri love🇵🇸 (@mclovenxoxo) February 3, 2025
Oh, and because West’s ego knows no bounds, he then went on to post on Instagram about how Censori’s “outfit” at the 2025 Grammys had broken the internet and even overshadowed the awards ceremony itself… Okay, loser.
One particularly satisfying clapback to the rapper’s dramatics came from photographer Chiara Glionna, who commented on another one of West’s posts about the Grammys outfit (which has since been deleted) and stated: “It’s an easy win when a man puts a naked woman on a screen.”
Glionna, who also spoke to the publication Tyla about the Grammys moment, noted that West repeatedly treats Censori like “an ornament.” “The heart of all of this is not an offense to the male ego, but the fight for a fundamental right: respect. And I will never stop defending it,” she continued.
It’s safe to say that Censori is very likely not okay. And irrespective of whether or not you want to argue that it’s infantilising to presume the model is not in control here, it’s clear to us all that West will always view his wife as an accessory, rather than a human being.
