The wife of Kanye West stripped naked at the Grammys. Is she controlled or in control? For and against
Was Bianca Censori’s shocking red carpet nudity a red flag or the culmination a carefully staged, years’ long, public strip tease? Is she controlled, or master of her own naked domain? Two very different opinions.
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Two Herald Sun journalists, from different generations, share their views on the Bianca Censori Grammys nude scandal.
She’s controlled and submissive: Grace Baldwin
When I saw a video of Bianca Censori shedding her coat on the Grammys red carpet to reveal her naked body, I was horrified.
Not by her breasts or bikini line. I don’t really care about that. Nudity doesn’t particularly offend me — although her complete lack of body hair does feel incredibly wrong.
It’s the dynamic between Censori and Kanye West that is horrifying to me.
They stood there, side-by-side on the red carpet, while he was fully-clothed and Censori might as well have been stark naked.
She wore a completely sheer mini dress and a pair of heels. That’s it.
There is a vile kind of asymmetry in their relationship – especially when it comes to the way they dress. The longer they have been together, the more publicly naked Censori has become.
To call her nudity ‘empowering’ is a total cop-out, because nothing exists in a vacuum. Standing nude and vulnerable beside a powerful man is not feminism or girl power, it’s exploitation.
At the end of the day, her nudity doesn’t actually do anything. It doesn’t make a political statement, it doesn’t support marginalised communities, it’s not overly subversive, it’s just … there.
She’s just there, nude on a red carpet while people worry about her wellbeing.
It doesn’t make her look strong or independent, it makes her look controlled and submissive – which, for all we know, could be exactly what West wants. Gross.
There’s something seriously wrong here. She is married to a very powerful man who has previously said he ‘loves Nazis’ and ‘can see some good things about Hitler’.
To not examine the power dynamics at play here is to be blind or wilfully ignorant. Someone as unhinged as West is not encouraging people to be making their best choices, and this extends to his wife.
I fully believe that something is not right here. Silence and secrecy are trademarks of West and Censori, so it’s highly unlikely we’ll ever hear from Censori about her wellbeing – and that’s just as worrying.
Why is nobody more concerned that she hasn’t spoken publicly since she and West got together?
Everything about their dynamic in public is a big fat red flag. West is stripping Censori of her identity in real time and people are dismissing it as some kind of avant-garde quirk.
She doesn’t have a voice. She doesn’t have privacy. She doesn’t even have modesty. She’s simultaneously baring it all and giving away nothing, in a carefully controlled balance.
Nudity can be empowering, especially when it is used as a tool to subvert the centuries of men censoring the female body. But in order for it to be empowering, it has to have intention and, most importantly, be consensual.
I don’t think Censori’s nudity is consensual.
Experts have said Censori shows signs of disassociation in public, that she shows signs of distress and fear. Happy, safe people don’t do that. Happy people don’t typically stand naked in front of a media pack with their fully-clothed Nazi-sympathising husband.
There are welfare checks to be made, questions to be asked, maybe even divorce papers to be signed. Truly, I hope she’s okay.
She knows exactly what she’s doing: Mandy Squires
Make no mistake, Bianca Censori knew exactly what she was doing in choosing to go starkers on the Grammy Awards red carpet.
Look at the exposure, quite literally, she has got with her choice of completely see-through dress (if we can call it that).
She took attention media away from Beyonce, Taylor Swift and other huge, international music stars with just a shrug of a jacket.
The Melbourne-born wife of rapper Kanye West has teased us over the years with her less-is-more fashion choices, baring breasts and butt.
And speculation has been that West has controlled her fashion choices for his own perverse pleasures.
But Censori, 30, an architect from Melbourne, is by no means dim, and I doubt she is being ordered what to wear, and when.
This is a woman who wants to be noticed and reported on — the architect of her own public exposure and questionable fame.
At the Grammys she achieved just that, without even being able to sing.
She made a show of it too, arriving at the venue in a black fur coat, before dramatically letting it drop to the floor when she hit the red carpet – to reveal all.
That’s strip tease 101, and it’s an art Censori has perfected over several years.
The Grammys strip-down ignited a media frenzy, and everyone was talking about the empress in no clothes rather than the supremely talented music stars the event was designed to celebrate.
In public outings previously she has worn just strips of strategically positioned material — always guaranteeing headlines.
Nudity, she knows, works for attention.
Censori moved to LA in 2020, having completed her masters at Melbourne University and worked for three years at DP Toscano Architects.
She is an educated woman.
Her own sister Angelina Censori came forward last year to set the record straight on rumours Bianca was being silenced and controlled by West in what she wore.
She said it was “utter bullshit”.
Describing her avant-garde older sister as ‘an artist’, Angelina said the family was unfazed by the constant media attention on Bianca’s controversial designer and musician husband, West.
“We all support him. We support his new album. We support his new clothes he’s dropping,” she said.
“It’s all just bullshit.”
In 2022, at a guest lecture on architecture, Censori showcased the unusual projects she had designed: a Californian house resting on giant rocks, a sound stage in the Saudi desert, a set for West’s Sunday Service ceremony in Georgia enabling him to literally walk on water in the middle of a lake.
All cutting edge, attention-grabbing designs, aimed at making a huge impact and ensuring people stop, and go ‘wow’.
The naked problem for Bianca now, however, seems to be where to go next in her unbridled bid for attention and some sort of bizarre stardom?
Once it’s all been bared, there are few moves left to make.
In a slow tease strip show, it often – but not always – ends there.
Originally published as The wife of Kanye West stripped naked at the Grammys. Is she controlled or in control? For and against
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