adidas on Tuesday ended its partnership with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, after the musician made a series of offensive and antisemitic comments. Few hours later, Gap also announced that it would immediately remove Ye's Yeezy products from its stores. It shut down YeezyGap.com, which now redirects to the Gap website.
"adidas 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.
"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", part of the press release issued by adidas reads.
"Antisemitism, racism and hate in any form are inexcusable and not tolerated in accordance with our values," said Gap, which announced in September that it would end its partnership with Ye. The clothing retailer said at the time it would sell through its remaining Yeezy inventory.
According to adidas, "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 sportwear gaint added that it is "the sole owner of all design rights to existing products as well as previous and new colorways under the partnership" and that "more information will be given as part of the company’s upcoming Q3 earnings announcement on November 9, 2022".
The controversial rapper once said slavery was a choice. In his words, the COVID-19 vaccine is "the mark of the beast."
He was suspended from Twitter and Instagram due to antisemitic posts, which the social media platforms claimed Sunday violated their policies. Ye said in a tweet that he would soon "death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE" that he was referring to the DEFCON scale, which measures the readiness of the US defense system.
“You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda,” he said in the same tweet posted late Saturday, which was removed by Twitter.
The comment drew a sharp rebuke from the Anti-Defamation League, which called the tweet “deeply troubling, dangerous, and antisemitic, period.”
As at the time of publishing this report, Ye is yet to public apologize for his remarks.
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