Moments after the red carpet arrivals began at the 2025 Grammy Awards Sunday night, images of Kanye West’s wife Bianca Censori’s Grammys outfit started going viral.
It’s not hard to understand why, in theory. Censori, 29, first arrived in a long fur coat. As her husband stood stonefaced beside her, she turned her back to the photographers, paused briefly, and then slowly began to lower the coat over her bare shoulders. Then, she dropped the coat entirely, revealing her naked backside, clad only in what appeared to be a sheer stocking.
As the photographers began to yell out and snap away, Censori placed her hands on her hips, and twirled to face them. Her face was impassive as she revealed her entirely nude body.
In a matter of minutes, the photos were everywhere.
This was not the first time Censori, an Australian model and architect who married the disgraced rapper in 2022, appeared naked in public, of course. Since the pair got together, Censori has appeared consistently in the tabloids in various levels of nudity, as well as engaged in what appears to be indecent public behavior, raising questions about what exactly the couple is going for and how much agency Censori has in putting her entire body on display.
But the Grammys stunt was a disquieting escalation. It’s one thing to get snapped by the paps, it’s another thing entirely another to stand in front of a sea of cameras and invite them—and us—to gawk.
And gawk we did. Headlines blared instantly about Censori’s choice to, as the New York Times put it, push “minimalist fashion to the extreme,” with CNN asking, in a world of naked dresses, did “one take it too far?” And while it’s true that so-called naked or sheer dressing is a trend that we’ve been seeing in various forms on red carpets for a decade or more now, it feels incorrect to speak about Censori’s complete nudity as if it’s part of a fashion trend.
Although most of us watching the viral moment could sense this was more than a starlet pushing the limits of propriety—it’s hard not to factor in Censori’s unknowable nature, her vacant expression and wide eyes— we still stared at and shared the images. That’s something that we should probably examine.
It’s true that, when it comes to the internet, our usual mode of operation is to share first, ask questions later. We see a major moment from a big event and our first instinct is to weigh in. No matter if we’re commenting on an outfit, making a meme, or expressing our annoyance on who won what award, speed is the currency by which we feel we must operate. And so, within minutes of Censori’s disrobing, photos of her naked body were everywhere, from Instagram to TikTok to text messages to nearly every news website. No matter where you went, the same images followed. An expressionless woman, fully exposed, as her fully-clothed husband stood stonefaced next to her.
By Monday morning, though, the instinct began to curdle. Many of us were left feeling strange and wondering why we were so quick to share these photos. Glamour, it should be noted, chose to delete the photo we used of Censori from our coverage upon reflection after the awards show. The truth is, none of us have any idea about West and his wife’s relationship, although it’s hard to deny that their public dynamic feels exploitative, if not possibly abusive, at its core.
Sure, there are endless sources chattering to the tabloid that this was maybe an homage to one of West’s album covers or a master plan by West to troll the world and get attention, one that Censori cosigns. The couple, these “sources” say, is not performing shock and awe for just the male gaze but for the internet gaze, creating a spectacle we can’t help but take part in.
According to Page Six, shortly before she disrobed West whispered to his wife: “Make a scene.” It’s a twisted version of his ex-wife and mother of his four children, Kim Kardashian’s now-iconic “break the internet” moment, and raises questions about what exactly we are cosigning. Not only is this giving at least West what he wants, but given that we have never heard directly from Censori, it’s possible that we’re robotically sharing pornographic images of a woman taken under coercive control or duress.
In the end, we can discuss and dissect Bianca Censori’s Grammys outfit and debate about what exactly Conseri is thinking, what she feels, and what she wants. But we should not ignore the pit in our stomachs when we look at the images and their explosion across the web.
Because no matter the context from which we are sharing the image, West—a man with a history of humiliating women—wins. He doesn’t care if we’re sharing the image gleefully, with indifference just to get likes, or with a message of admonishment or concern. He probably just wants our attention, to control the news cycle and to power the outrage machine by using the body and sexuality of his wife for his own reasons. And in the case of so many instances of misogyny via digital manipulation, many of us fell for it without even realizing what we were doing.
When faced with someone who is willing to do anything to shock the world, it’s easy to not play into their hand. All we have to do is put down our phones, delete the images, and look away.
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