Adidas is officially ending its partnership with Ye, né Kanye West, after nearly a decade working together on shoes and apparel. The decision comes after a period during which Ye produced T-shirts at fashion week with the phrase “White Lives Matter,” which is often associated with white supremacy, and repeatedly made antisemitic comments.
Adidas first put its relationship with Ye “under review” on October 6th, after the rapper-designer said on Instagram that he wanted to get out of his contract with the German company. Since then, he’s made antisemitic comments during an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson and on Twitter, where he threatened to go “death con [sic] 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE.”
“adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech,” the brand said in a statement. “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.”
Adidas is ending the partnership and will stop producing all Yeezy products immediately. “This is expected to have a short-term negative impact of up to €250 million [$246 million] on the company’s net income in 2022 given the high seasonality of the fourth quarter,” the statement said. However, Adidas does note that it is the “sole owner” of the designs of existing products.
Adidas is only the most recent brand to cut ties with Kanye. In September, Gap ended what was supposed to be a 10-year partnership with Ye after only two years. Balenciaga also announced that it would no longer work with Ye, while the rapper’s talent agency, CAA, dropped him as a client. However, the Adidas deal—which helped turn Yeezy into a brand worth a reported $3 billion, per Bloomberg—was by far Ye’s largest and most valuable partnership.
