ADIDAS TERMINATES PARTNERSHIP WITH YE EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY
Adidas has officially terminated its partnership with Ye — née Kanye Omari West — the American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, and fashion designer. Citing that the brand “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.”
The termination comes after the performer appeared at Paris Fashion Week wearing a shirt that read “White Lives Matter,” and then proceeded to make anti-semitic remarks on social media and yesterday on a podcast interview with MIT research scientist Lex Fridman.
The press release goes on to say that “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.
“This is expected to have a short-term negative impact of up to €250 million [about the same in US Dollars] on the company’s net income in 2022 given the high seasonality of the fourth quarter.
“Adidas is the sole owner of all design rights to existing products as well as previous and new colorways under the partnership. More information will be given as part of the company’s upcoming Q3 earnings announcement on November 9, 2022.”
According to The New York Times and other news sources, the designer and performer has also been dropped by Balenciaga, GAP (although those ties were cut last month), Vogue, JP Morgan Chase, film studio MRC, and Creative Artists Agency. Twitter and Instagram also both locked his account earlier this month.
Ye, who has revealed that he has been diagnosed as bipolar, has also been off his medication “for the good of his music,” since 2018, as reported in The Atlantic and other sources.