Kanye West's $57 million Malibu mansion is a pretty good metaphor for Kanye himself. Like the man now known as Ye, the Tadao Ando-designed beachside house was once imminently likeable, the epitome of artistic ingenuity.
Now, both Ye and his 4,000 square foot Malibu home have rotted from the inside out.
To be fair, Ye's issues have always been there but the Malibu mansion could've stayed pretty. Let's take a trip through time, back to when Ye purchased the house, to witness it decline over the past few years, dovetailing neatly with Ye's public reputation (and, depending on how you feel about his recent music, his career).
In late September 2021, news broke that Ye acquired a Tadao Ando-designed oceanfront house in Malibu for about $57 million.
Before Ye purchased the mansion, it was listed for closer to $75 million. Shortly after, Ye listed his Wyoming ranch for sale (only $11 million!).
Shortly after, Kim Kardashian separately bought herself a gargantuan $70m house in Malibu, not so far from Ye's new digs.
Ye's enormous Malibu home boasted a brutalist façade typical of Ye's tastes, giant windows overlooking the sea, and approximately 4,000 square feet, which is a pretty big footprint for Malibu.
In early 2022, Ye and Kim Kardashian moved towards their inevitable divorce and he began prepping the much-delayed DONDA 2.
Around the same time, Ye brought in contractors to oversee extensive remodeling plans for his Malibu palace, renovations that were destined to remain uncomplete perhaps forever.
By summer 2022, Ye's Malibu house was entirely gutted and barren as repairs dragged on and on.
The floor-to-ceiling windows facing the water had long been removed, leaving the rear of the building entirely open to the elements.
Ye was at one point spotted checking out the progress in the middle of summer, taking one of his many girlfriends at the time with him.
Weeks turned into months and, by the end of 2022, Ye had gone full white nationalist.
Eventually, his anti-Semitic outbursts would lead nearly every business partner to officially drop both Ye and his YEEZY brand.
By April 2023, Ye's Malibu property (and his Sunday Service HQ in Los Angeles) had fallen into deep disrepair.
Neighbors told TMZ that they haven't "seen anyone around for many months" and Ye's Malibu mansion was "left to rot" given that no one is maintaining the structure in the meantime, despite all the outside advisors that Ye pulled on for the project.
The homes interior walls, exposed to the outside air, wind, and sand as they were, began to crumble and the metal railings are rusting, better as a respite for seagulls than would-be residents.
A Happy Hanukkah sign was even posted onto the Malibu house's garage door around the time that Kanye was embracing hate speech and far-right conspiracy theorists.
While Ye's Tadao Ando-designed home collapses into the sea, Kim Kardashian is apparently happy at work with Ando himself, whom she met with during a recent trip to Japan.
Kardashian spoke with Ando about "a dream project we have been working on for the past two years," promising that the pair would "break ground" imminently.
All this while Ye's Ando-designed Malibu mansion lays decrepit and unused.
By December 2023, things were so bad that Ye enlisted Jason Oppenheim, Selling Sunset's most aerodynamic salesman, to shift his Malibu mansion for a paltry $53 million, $4 million less than Ye paid for it.
The price dip is definitely not too surprising considering the state of disrepair that the house is currently in.
Don't feel bad for Ye, though. Just because he presumably can't afford to put more money into his multi-million-dollar mansion doesn't mean he's homeless — around the time that his mansion was decomposing, Ye and wife Bianca Censori were staying at various top-dollar hideaways across the Los Angeles area, including the Malibu-based Nobu Ryokan, where rooms costs upwards of $2,000 per night. Ye has since relocated to Italy and Saudi Arabia.
Remember that Ye also owns acres of land in Calabasas, his childhood home in Chicago, a house in Belgium, and plenty of other real estate, too, so he could easily move somewhere else if he got tired of dwelling in a luxurious motel.
Ye's also keeping quite busy what with his YEEZY SEASON 10 "fashion show" event. So don't let all the crazy shoeless outfits he's been seen wearing recently fool you: Ye is still quite wealthy.
