Adidas Drops Ye Partnership Over Antisemitic Remarks

By Nikki Slusher

It’s incredible how Kanye West, who legally changed his name to Ye, spent the last two decades building massive music and fashion empires just to throw it all away by repeating Candace Owens talking points on television. As of Tuesday his partnership with Adidas had been terminated over his recent antisemitic fueled meltdown on social media.

In the opening of their statement posted on the company’s website, it reads, “Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech. Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness.”

Continuing on: “After a thorough review, the company has taken the decision to terminate the partnership with Ye immediately, end production of Yeezy branded products and stop all payments to Ye and his companies. Adidas will stop the Adidas Yeezy business with immediate effect.” Ouch.

Adidas was Ye’s biggest corporate partner for almost a decade. In 2015 their first collaboration was released, and since then sales have grown to around $2 billion annually — making up 10% of Adidas’s sales. Before getting cut off, Ye himself was worth around $2 billion; however, Adidas made up $1.5 billion and he is now estimated to be worth $400 million.

Earlier this month the rapper started controversy over a “White Lives Matter” shirt from his latest Yeezy collection. After the public outcry started to get louder from his antisemitic tweet, on the Oct. 16 episode of Drink Champs podcast, he said, “I can say antisemitic things and Adidas can’t drop me. Now what? Now what?” Guess they answered that question. Gap and Foot Locker also terminated their partnerships with Ye, and his talent agency CAA dropped him as a client on Monday.

Some Ye fans have come to his defense claiming that he’s a smart businessman who purposely got himself dropped from partnerships to make himself more independent. The only other person who completely blew up his reputation whose fan base thought it was a strategic business move was impeached twice as president, his resort-home raided by the FBI two months ago, facing multiple civil and criminal lawsuits, and begs for money at least three times a day. It’s not exactly the path a wise businessman would go down.

After being suspended from Twitter, Ye told Bloomberg News of his plans to buy Parler. The company said it expects to finalize the deal by the end of the year. “The future is uncancelable,” they said. Sounds like the less exciting version of Donald Trump’s life.

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