Kanye West’s former security guard Steve Stanulis ‘cannot escape’ the tabloid drama, even 7 a long time later on. So he created a convey to-all documentary about it.

• Steve Stanulis is a filmmaker who labored safety for Kanye West in 2016.

• He wants to put his time doing work for the rapper driving him and made a documentary to do so.

• Stanulis said that “15 Days With Kanye” will be the final phrase on his time doing the job for West.

To make a tell-all documentary about a story you’ve got spent yrs attempting to escape may well seem counterintuitive.

But when a Google warn detected a 2022 write-up when yet again linking Steve Stanulis to his previous consumer Kanye West, now recognised as Ye, Stanulis resolved to “just fucking do it.”

And so he did. “15 Times With Kanye,” a documentary generated by Stanulis, together with Dolce Productions and Jennifer DiLandro, debuted at the New York City Global Film Competition in January, in which it gained the award for greatest documentary.

from on Vimeo.

A former police officer, Stanulis worked for Ye in 2016 as section of his security depth. Having said that, a really-publicized dispute introduced the job to a swift conclusion immediately after only 15 times. New York Daily News documented that Stanulis experienced been fired for talking with Ye’s then-wife Kim Kardashian as she was planning for the Fulfilled Gala, however resources shut to the pair disputed the claim to TMZ. Stanulis then instructed the Daily Mail that he failed to “hit on” Kardashian but in its place released himself, following which he was remaining powering and explained to he wouldn’t be needed the pursuing working day soon after talking with her. He also spoke in the job interview about West not managing him with “regard.”

That was virtually 7 years ago. The bodyguard turned movie producer has due to the fact assisted helm films like 2022’s “Monica,” an personal drama that premiered at the Venice International Movie Competition. Even with a critically acclaimed indie and an at any time-expanding résumé, Stanulis feels he “are not able to escape.”

Images of Stanulis standing outside a Brooklyn club with Khloé Kardashian’s ex, Tristan Thompson, circulated in 2018. In 2021, he was named in a TikTok user’s hoax boasting that Stanulis experienced facilitated a mystery rendezvous in between the influencer and Ye (Stanulis despatched him a cease and desist). His title also carries on to seem in Ye-adjacent media, like this 2022 Athletics Manor submit reporting unsubstantiated rumors about Ye, Kim Kardashian, and the NBA player Chris Paul. The piece had almost nothing to do with Stanulis but involved an complete area about him in any case.

Tale carries on

During “15 Days With Kanye,” Stanulis, his mates, and his spouse and children insist that he’d like to split unfastened from the centripetal drive of the celebrity controversy.

“You are not gonna get away from it no issue what you do, it can be gonna be a aspect of you anyway,” Stanulis told Insider. “So embrace it, set it to mattress, and go from there.”

Stanulis claimed that his association with Kanye has impacted his occupation

It’s complicated to reconcile Stanulis’ narrative of regularly obtaining dragged again into Ye’s orbit when he’s spoken voluntarily quite a few moments about his time operating for the rapper, these types of as on the “Hollywood Raw Podcast” in 2020.

Stanulis maintains that he doesn’t invoke the earlier gig for clout and states in the documentary that he only began to talk out about the Achieved Gala controversy when he wasn’t paid out instantly by the gig’s 3rd-occasion employer.

When Stanulis made comments in the media about Kardashian’s Paris robbery, he advised Insider that he was talking in his capability as a former police officer. He was not making an attempt to provide “grime” on the couple, but commenting on regardless of whether or not he could have prevented it if he were being however detailing them.

“I’m not Batman,” Stanulis explained.

The difficulty for him, he advised Insider, is about his standing.

Stanulis stated that “every single one time” he did a little something, like “Monica” or his 2020 movie “5th Borough,” discussions would “generally go back again to Kanye and I.”

“If I was seeking to obtain an trader that failed to know me, and they Google me, they’d be like, ‘He’s not a filmmaker, he is a fucking bodyguard,'” claimed Stanulis.

When ’15 Times With Kanye’ may well not totally reclaim the narrative, it really is presented some closure for Stanulis

Several of the tales that Stanulis tells in “15 Times With Kanye” are ones that he is explained to right before and could “recite” though “performing my expenses,” he advised Insider. There usually are not any exceptionally large stakes in the documentary, nor will the movie modify anyone’s notion of Ye, Stanulis mentioned.

(It is really well worth noting that in modern months, Ye has accomplished much more to tarnish his own legacy than Stanulis most likely ever could, mostly by antisemitic responses, as well as other problematic statements about slavery and his troubling social-media posts about his ex-spouse and her former boyfriend Pete Davidson.)

It truly is unclear if the documentary, which Stanulis does not have concrete programs to release immediately after its screening at the New York Town Worldwide Film Pageant, will be in a position to wholly reclaim a narrative challenged by supernova celebrities and cemented by 7 yrs of tabloid coverage.

A Staten Island indigenous and father of a few, Stanulis’ lifestyle certainly would not appear to be to revolve around being Kanye’s ex-bodyguard, but I do recognize wherever he’s coming from. The film’s development and launch characterize a type of closure, a remaining term on Stanulis’ possess phrases. Very well, perhaps.

“Once this is around if we ever discuss once more, and I point out Kanye, then I will give you whatsoever,” Stanulis instructed me. “Then I drop a bet.”

Examine the first short article on Insider