Adidas Part Ways With Kayne West Over Antisemitic Remarks

Adidas, the latest company to cut ties with Ye, has terminated its relationship with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West due to his hateful and antisemitic remarks.

The German sportswear brand claimed this move would negatively affect its bottom line.

“Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech,” the company said in a statement Tuesday.

Adidas was pressured to sever connections with Ye after social media users, including celebrities, called for it.

At the beginning of the month, it declared that it was reevaluating its lucrative footwear relationship with the rapper.

Adidas announced Tuesday that it had carried out a “thorough investigation” and will immediately halt both the production of its Yeezy product line and payments to Ye and his businesses.

The sportswear company predicted the decision might cost it up to 250 million euros ($246 million) in net profits this year.

Adidas’ action comes after Ye was banned from Twitter and Instagram this month for making anti-Semitic statements that the social media platforms claimed broke their regulations.

He recently made comments like “the mark of the beast,” “slavery is a choice,” and “the COVID-19 vaccination.”

Additionally, he received criticism for showing up to his Yeezy collection exhibition in Paris wearing a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt.

His talent agency, CAA, has dropped Ye, and the MRC studio said on Monday that it is shelving an entire documentary about the rapper.

According to Women’s Wear Daily, the designer brand Balenciaga severed its relationship with Ye last week.

Ye and JPMorganChase have dissolved their commercial partnership; despite this banking, a split was always planned before Ye made his anti-Semitic remarks.

The leader of the country’s largest Jewish organization in Germany, where Adidas is based, applauded the company’s move but noted that the “action was overdue.”

“I would have liked a clear stance earlier from a German company that also was entangled with the Nazi regime,” Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said in a statement.