Artist Ogechi Chieke has filed a legal complaint against Kehinde Wiley, accusing him of sexual assault stemming from an incident in 2007. Chieke alleges that after a New York exhibition she was included in, Wiley groped her and made unwanted sexual advances, causing her to leave New York and abandon her art career. Wiley denies the allegations, calling them a "blatant money-grab" and stating he has never met Chieke. The suit was filed under New York City's Victims of Gender-Motivated Violence Protection Law just before the statute of limitations window closed on March 1, 2025.
This is the latest in a series of sexual misconduct allegations against Wiley, following complaints from Ghanaian artist Joseph Awuah-Darko in May 2024 and others. The accusations have already led three museums—the Joslyn Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami—to shelve or postpone exhibitions of his work, highlighting how such allegations can disrupt the careers of even the most prominent contemporary artists and spark debates about institutional responses versus due process.