A former private chef for Kylie Jenner filed a complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court on June 22 alleging that the beauty mogul and her management team forced her to perform physically demanding labor during a high-risk pregnancy, denied her reasonable accommodations, and created the conditions that led to a miscarriage, then fired her for speaking up about it.
The complaint, which USA TODAY reported contains more than two dozen claims, names Jenner, her corporations, and management firm Tri Star as defendants. The chef, whose full name has not been publicly disclosed, seeks damages, back pay, lost wages, lost employment benefits, unpaid wages, attorneys' costs, and a jury trial.
This is the third lawsuit filed against the 28-year-old Jenner by a former household employee in less than two months. California's employment laws exist to protect workers at every income level. The question now is whether one of the country's most famous young entrepreneurs treated the people who worked inside her home as something less than employees with rights.
The chef began working for Jenner in November 2024. She informed supervisors in early December that she was approximately three months pregnant and required reasonable accommodations, the New York Post reported. What followed, according to the complaint, was a pattern of escalating physical demands and indifference to her medical condition.
On New Year's Eve 2024, the complaint states, the chef was instructed "to lift and transport heavy food items across the street and uphill without assistance." She "became dizzy, began choking and gasping for air, and required assistance from security personnel." Rather than concern, the complaint alleges, a manager reprimanded her later that day, not for working unsafely, but for upsetting Jenner with her behavior.
The New York Post quoted the alleged statement from a supervisor:
"Stop it, just stop it. You are upsetting Kylie. You are making her depressed."
That was the response, the complaint alleges, to a pregnant woman who had just needed security guards to help her breathe.
The most devastating allegations center on February 1, 2025. The chef was assigned to work a birthday party for one of Jenner's children. She was given what the complaint calls an "excessive workload" and denied requests for assistance. She broke down emotionally during the event.
That night, the complaint states, she "experienced extreme physical exhaustion and heaviness throughout her body as a result of the prolonged and intense workload."
The next morning, February 2, 2025, she woke up "experiencing severe hemorrhaging," drove herself to the emergency room, and received the news no expectant mother should have to hear. The complaint states she "was informed that there was no detectable heartbeat and that she had lost her unborn child."
When she returned to work and disclosed the miscarriage, the complaint alleges she was not met with sympathy. Instead, she was falsely blamed for leaving Jenner's house in "disarray" after the February 1 event. On February 8, she suffered another hemorrhage and was hospitalized again.
Lawsuits involving workplace discrimination by prominent public figures have drawn increasing scrutiny in recent years, and the allegations here, if proven, would represent one of the more disturbing examples.
The complaint describes a familiar corporate maneuver: making conditions intolerable, then characterizing the departure as voluntary.
A manager "repeatedly suggested" the chef relocate to New York to be closer to family. On March 14, 2025, shortly after she returned to the job, the chef was told she had been removed from the Jenner household assignment and that March 31 would be her final day.
When she pushed back, asking "what it would take" to continue working a future event for Jenner, a manager said they would discuss it with the team. The answer came back: "it was not going to work out."
The complaint states that Jenner's employers characterized the chef's "communication about her medical condition and relocation as a voluntary resignation despite [her] intent to remain employed." When the chef later "clarified that she had never resigned," she said she "was confused because she believed she had already been terminated."
That sequence, deny accommodations, push the worker out, then claim she left on her own, is a textbook wrongful-termination allegation. It is also the kind of conduct that California labor law was specifically designed to prevent.
After her termination, the chef reported "discrimination, harassment, retaliation, pregnancy-related mistreatment, accommodation failures, and wage violations" to Tri Star. The management firm's response, the complaint states, was not an investigation. On May 22, 2025, a Tri Star team member emailed the chef "proposing a settlement and release agreement on behalf of herself and Defendant Kylie Jenner and her corporations." The amount was not disclosed in the complaint.
Had the chef signed, she would have been barred from suing. She did not sign.
The complaint also alleges the chef was never provided "compliant meal periods, rest periods, overtime compensation, mileage reimbursement, and accurate wage statements" during her employment, basic wage-and-hour protections that apply to every worker in California, regardless of who signs the checks.
Attorney Della Shaker of the Shaker Law Group, who represents the chef, issued a statement to USA TODAY:
"For our client, this case is about finding justice after one of the most painful chapters of her life. She looks forward to having the truth come to light through the judicial process."
Shaker also told the New York Post:
"Celebrity status does not exempt anyone from California's employment laws. We look forward to presenting the evidence in court and allowing the facts to speak for themselves."
USA TODAY reached out to a representative for Jenner for comment. No response was reported.
The chef's complaint is not an isolated filing. It is the third lawsuit brought against Jenner by a former household employee in rapid succession.
On April 17, former housekeeper Angelica Hernandez Vasquez filed a complaint alleging "a hostile work environment" involving "discrimination, harassment, and retaliation... based on her race, national origin, religion, and disability." Shaker Law Group also represents Vasquez.
On April 29, another former housekeeper, Juana Delgado Soto, filed her own lawsuit alleging wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, failure to pay wages, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Three lawsuits from three different former employees, each alleging overlapping patterns of discrimination, retaliation, and wage violations, within roughly ten weeks. That is not a coincidence. It is a pattern that demands answers.
The broader trend of public figures facing legal consequences for alleged workplace misconduct has accelerated in recent years, and courts have shown less patience for attempts to buy silence through settlement agreements when the underlying conduct involves potential labor violations.
Several important questions remain open. Neither Jenner nor Tri Star has responded publicly to the chef's complaint. The specific statutes cited in the filing have not been disclosed in available reporting. The case number has not been published. The status of the two earlier lawsuits by Vasquez and Delgado Soto is unclear.
The complaint itself, as quoted in court filings obtained by USA TODAY, concludes with a stark summary of the alleged damage:
"As a direct and proximate result of Defendants' unlawful conduct, Plaintiff suffered severe emotional distress, anxiety, depression, humiliation, mental anguish, and other damages."
These are allegations, not proven facts. Jenner deserves her day in court. But the sheer volume and consistency of claims from multiple former employees, all alleging similar mistreatment, all represented by counsel willing to go to trial, should concern anyone who believes employment laws exist to protect real people, not just to decorate the California Labor Code.
As questions mount about how powerful figures handle workplace complaints behind closed doors, the Jenner lawsuits are a reminder that wealth and fame do not rewrite the obligations an employer owes the people who show up to work every day.
Celebrity or not, if you employ people in California, you follow California law. Three lawsuits in ten weeks suggest someone forgot that, or never cared to learn.
