Ye, as Kanye West is now officially called, is not a simple-to-understand celebrity. Let’s just say that, at best, he is insensitive and, at worst, really problematic. In one of his most recent instances of dubious behavior, Ye purchased a beach house in Malibu, California, created by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, the winner of the Pritzker Prize, and then gutted it to the point where it resembled a bomb shelter. He has now successfully sold the hardly recognisable crib, which is listed for $39 million.
In 2021, when the “Heartless” rapper bought the 4,000-square-foot oceanfront home at 24844 Malibu Road, it bore all the hallmarks of Ando’s style, like modernist lines and plenty of reinforced concrete. Pre-Ye, per the New Yorker, it also boasted marble-lined bathrooms, custom wood cabinetry that “had cost hundreds of thousands of dollars,” and a courtyard with a firepit.
Ye once rapped, “I know I act a fool,” which checks out when it comes to the renovations he made in the months after acquiring this property. He hired construction workers to rip out the cabinets, paint over the wood, topple chimneys, take hammers to the marble walls, and make other modifications that could only be described as a full-scale demolition. All this after, according to the New Yorker, Ye showed supposed reverence for Ando by saying he was the “greatest living architect” and “the Ye of all the architects.”
The publication also mentions that Ye had a vision of “clarity, simplicity, and a kind of self-reliance” for the space, which he wanted to manifest via a lack of air-conditioning, water, power, and cable. “This is going to be my bomb shelter. This is going to be my Batcave,” he told the main construction worker on the project. Alas, these dark, twisted, and grandiose plans were never fully completed.
In January 2024, Ye put the five-bedroom, four-bathroom home on the market for $53 million—through the Oppenheim Group. In April, he slashed the price to $39 million. Just yesterday, TMZ revealed that the property is in escrow. Ye, shockingly, might have found someone else who appreciates a certain Chernobyl-meets-Selling Sunset aesthetic, or else is excited to use this shell of a house as a liberating blank canvas.