One Of Kanye West’s Former Bodyguards Talked About His “Ridiculous Rules”
According to The Blast, a bodyguard named Steve Stanulis recently appeared on the Hollywood Raw podcast, and true to the podcast’s name, he got raw about his time guarding the body of Mr. Kanye West. I’m kind of shocked that Kanye even needs a bodyguard in the first place. I guess I just thought his ego was big enough and thick enough to protect him from any threat. Maybe Bodyguard Steve’s job was to protect the integrity of the ego bubble. Regardless! Here’s what Bodyguard Steve had to say about working for Kanye.
On a scale of Good to Guarding Ellen, Steve’s time with Kanye might fall somewhere in the middle, in the “mostly annoying” section. Steve is a former NYPD officer and Chippendales dancer. Excuse me? Forget Kanye, I want to hear about Steve’s little black bowtie days. But he didn’t get into that. He just spoke about Kanye. Like his very first day on the job, where Kanye cursed him out for not knowing what floor the elevator was supposed to go to.
“The first day I met him…it was fashion week. I was supposed to meet him at the studio. When he gets there, we get into the elevator and he’s says, ‘Aren’t you going to push what floor we are going to?’ I was like, ‘I have no idea what floor, it’s my first day.’ So he starts ranting, ‘So you mean you didn’t call ahead to find out where I’m supposed to be going?’ I said, ‘No.’ So he’s ranting and raving. So I said, ‘Look bro, we can do this one of three ways. One, you could tell me what button to press, and now I’ll know. Two, you could press the button, and I’ll see which one you press so I’ll know. Or three, you can sit in here all day and tell me how important your time is and we are not going to go anywhere.’ Again, that was our first interaction. He went for the first option.”
Okay, see – Steve went in totally unprepared. Because if Kanye asked me to press which floor we were going to, and I didn’t know which floor that was, I’d say, “Does it even matter? The floor which the great and almighty Kanye is currently on is clearly the best floor in the building.”
Kanye also reportedly had a problem with being guarded in the first place. According to Steve, Kanye refused to walk with him, which is kind of the whole point of having a bodyguard.
“Kanye has some ridiculous rules. He wanted you to stay 10 paces behind him on a city street. So obviously if someone is going to come up and do something, by the time I try to run up and prevent it, it would have already happened.”
Keeping a mandatory 10 paces apart? Refuses to be in the same room as his wife? Who knew Kanye was such a social distancing trailblazer!
Speaking of Kanye’s wife, Steve also talked about the people who would often be waiting for Kanye and Kim Kardashian whenever they did go outside for their 10-pace distance walks. Steve said that without fail, photographers would always be waiting for Kim and Kanye as they left whatever building they were in, and Steve is suspicious about how photographers knew exactly where his client Kanye would be:
“First of all, there’s no way [paparazzi] doesn’t get called upfront. There’s no way every time they are leaving, all these people know about it. There’s definitely somebody calling ahead. That’s just my opinion. I’m just saying it’s coincidental that wherever we are, they’re always there. Maybe they’re just better than I think they are.”
Now I really know that Steve didn’t know who he was working for. If Kim and Kanye go out in public looking their absolute tackiest and no one is there to take their picture, sell their picture, and have that picture posted 1.8 million times across the internet, do they even really exist? Kim and Kanye, please don’t think too hard about it – I don’t want you to break your brains.
Pic: Wenn.com