Adidas Ends Affiliation With Kanye West
The German shoe company, Adidas, has severed all ties with American rapper Kanye West for his most recent anti-Semitic and biased actions that the company deemed “unacceptable, hateful and dangerous.” Adidas released a statement announcing the ended partnership, outlining that Kanye’s comments and actions “violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness.”
It continued, stating that the company would discontinue its partnership with the rapper, cease manufacturing Yeezy-branded products, and cancel all payments to him and his businesses. The termination follows on the heels of Balenciaga ending its partnership with Kanye, now known as Ye, for the same reason. The parent company of the French fashion house released a statement, saying, “Balenciaga has no longer any relationship nor any plans for future projects related to this artist.”
Adidas faced global backlash to reprimand Ye for his controversial public comments and anti-Semitic remarks for the last few weeks. His most recent controversial actions that the masses have found disturbing include “White Lives Matter” T-shirts at Paris Fashion Week and the claim that George Floyd died from fentanyl, not Derek Chauvin’s knee on his neck. Even though Adidas had released a statement saying its partnership with Ye was “under review,” the backlash birthed the hashtag #boycottadidas, which was trending on Twitter over the weekend, strengthening as the company announced the sale of new Yeezy shoes.
While Ye raged that any reprisal against him validated his first anti-Semitic assertion that Jews controlled Hollywood and the banks, he was aware that his immensely lucrative relationship with Adidas was on the line. 2013 was the beginning of Adidas and Ye’s partnership. According to TMZ, even though Adidas has several sportsmen as brand ambassadors, such as James Harden, Lionel Messi, and Damian Lillard, their affiliation with the POWER rapper is believed to be the main contributor to the company’s resurgence in the shoe market.
In recent times, the other companies that have ended their businesses with Ye include the film and television studio MRC, the fashion magazine Vogue, and the Creative Artists Agency, a major Hollywood talent and sports agency.
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