'%20x='0'%20y='0'%20height='100%25'%20width='100%25'%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20xlink%3Ahref='data:image/jpg;base64,/9j/2wBDAAYEBQYFBAYGBQYHBwYIChAKCgkJChQODwwQFxQYGBcUFhYaHSUfGhsjHBYWICwgIyYnKSopGR8tMC0oMCUoKSj/2wBDAQcHBwoIChMKChMoGhYaKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCj/wgARCAAHAAoDASIAAhEBAxEB/8QAFgABAQEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQH/8QAFQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgP/2gAMAwEAAhADEAAAANmsLv8A/8QAIhAAAgEDAgcAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgMBBAURAGEGFCEiMUHB/9oACAEBAAE/AOJK8H3MGDVOUqzsOqcsDPD8rgZHYevr7oqy3uKWxUPiD7scqE+d5nX/xAAXEQADAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASEy/9oACAECAQE/AMuH/8QAGBEAAgMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEDISL/2gAIAQMBAT8Ah1TP/9k='%3E%3C/image%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Tattoo artist and TV personality Ceaser Emanuel is in the spotlight after former employee Venus Cuffs accused him of not paying her during her year of employment.
Reported by The Shade Room on January 15, 2025, Venus approached the Department of Labor, which ordered Ceaser to pay her $114,000 in wages.
Cuffs also alleged:
“He has a track record for not paying people and majority of those people tend to be women of color, black women.”
Trending
Ceaser Emanuel is mostly known for his appearances in the VH1 reality series Black Ink Crew and his net worth currently stands at $2.5 million, as per Celebrity Net Worth.
Venus said that she did everything for Ceaser Emanuel, including managerial duties and all of these happened back in 2016.
Notably, Cuffs reportedly agreed to work for Ceaser by getting paid on a per day basis but things did not happen as planned. She was eventually fired by Emanuel a year later.
Ceaser Emanuel has accumulated a lot of wealth from his successful career as a tattoo artist
As mentioned, the Bronx, New York native is well-known for his appearances on the show titled Black Ink Crew. It focuses on the everyday work that happens inside Ceaser’s tattoo shop and includes other tattoo artists as cast members, including Crystana Lattimore and Paul Robinson.
According to Reality Tidbit, he completed his higher studies at the High School of Graphic Communication and Arts followed by Katharine Gibbs College. He launched his tattoo shop in 2011 and it became popular around four years later after being featured on the VH1 show.
CBS News stated that Ceaser Emanuel was struggling with the loss that he suffered when his Black Ink shop on the Lenox Avenue was shut down in 2020 and a new season of the series was on the way at the same time. While speaking to the outlet, Ceaser said that the shutting down of the shop was one of his scariest experiences and added:
“It was horrible and I caught it in the beginning in March. My mom came up here and then she got sick. She had to go to the hospital and was put on a ventilator. It was a trying time and a scary time. She got through it. The world still hasn’t gotten back to how it used to be.”
Black Ink Crew has aired for ten seasons until now and it originally premiered back in 2013. While Ceaser’s work on the show has been his main source of income, his career as a tattoo artist has also helped him earn a lot at the same time.
A report by CBS News around four years ago stated that Ceaser Emanuel has expanded his tattoo business to different cities such as Chicago and Houston. He also created headlines in 2023 after claiming in an interview on the podcast Bagfuel that VH1 reportedly earned a profit of $1.2 billion from the reality series and he and his crew did not get anything from it.
“I was just curious, right… I had my lawyer look into it. [I asked him], ‘How much advertisement money [did] Black Ink make for the whole 10-year span?’ Bro, when he brought the numbers back, I p*ssed my f*cking pants.”
Allegations against Ceaser Emanuel explained
The legal documents of Venus Cuffs’ complaint obtained by The Shade Room revealed that Ceaser’s company Black Ink Crew violated Section 161 Article 5 of the New York labor law by not allowing employees to take 24 consecutive hours of rest in any calendar week and 30 minutes off for meals when the employees worked for six hours for almost a year.
Venus addressed the same in her video as she said:
“Not allowing people to take days off, not allowing people to have breaks. I saw with my own two eyes like a tattoo artist try to take a day off from the shop and get fired. I had to prove every step of the way that what I was saying was the truth. I wasn’t falsifying what I was saying. I wasn’t lying about what I was saying.”
Venus alleged that Ceaser Emanuel dismissed the claims that she had worked for him in the past after she filed a complaint with the Department of Labor. Cuffs said that she provided everything in the form of evidence while filing the complaint, including the text messages that she sent to the managers of Black Ink Crew.
The Labor Commissioner found Ceaser Emanuel's company violated multiple rules, including failing to pay employees as agreed and not keeping records of hours, wages, or deductions.
Venus Cuffs alleged that she has yet to receive her payment, despite her legal team sending a letter to Emanuel. She also claimed he ignored the labor department's orders.
On the other hand, Ceaser Emanuel told The Shade Room in a phone conversation that he did not know Venus Cuffs. However, he refused to say anything about the complaint filed with the labor department.
