Adidas Terminates Partnership With Kanye West

Adidas is officially ending its partnership with Ye – the artist formerly known as Kanye West – announcing the news in a statement on Tuesday where they addressed West’s recent antisemitic remarks.

“Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech,” the statement continues. “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.”

Aside from his antisemitism, West has been publically challenging the sportswear juggernaut for the past few months leading to the company placing its partnership with him under review. While Adidas has ended the Yeezy business effective immediately, they will still produce Yeezy brand shoes as they are the “sole owner of all design rights to existing products as well as previous and new colorways under the partnership.” So it looks like consumers can still look forward to what they’ve previously seen and know what to expect but ultimately the decision closes the door on the production of the Yeezy-branded product. Marking the end of an era.

West signed with Adidas in 2013, after previously having disputes while at Nike, Adidas would serve as a new home where he could bare as much creative freedom as he could. Ownership also played a huge part in Ye’s decision to sign with Adidas. Ironically, it was earlier this year when West started to publicly attack the brand over claims that they stole his designs and were selling lookalikes that were generating a significant amount of revenue. West went as far as harassing Adidas execs on social media and releasing abnormal videos of meetings on YouTube. It wasn’t until he wore a “white lives matter” shirt at his Paris fashion show that the company decided to officially place its partnership with him “under review.” Things only got worse from there as West would get himself banned from Twitter and Instagram for his anitsemtic hate speech.

It looks like Adidas just wanted to be removed from the cataclysmic situation as they are well aware that they will lose revenue.

“This is expected to have a short-term negative impact of up to €250 million on the company’s net income in 2022 given the high seasonality of the fourth quarter,” the statement says.

Ye recently went on the Drink Champs Podcast where he spoke more on his situation with Adidas at the time.

“I can say antisemitic things and Adidas can’t drop me,” said West. He also went on to falsely state that the death of George Floyd was caused by fentanyl.

West’s fall from grace hasn’t been a quick one, we’ve seen this movie far too many times but like with anything all stories must have a conclusion: could this be Kanye’s?