Adidas Has Finally Cut Ties With Kanye Over Antisemitic Remarks

It’s official: Adidas is (finally) ending its collaboration with rapper and icon Kane West, better known as Ye.  The move comes under presser from the public and employees after Ye’s recent antisemitic comments.

Adidas stated in a statement on Tuesday that it “does not condone antisemitism and any other type of hate speech” and referred to the rapper’s remarks and behavior as “unacceptable, terrible and deadly.”

The final significant business to sever relations with Ye was Adidas, bringing an almost ten-year collaboration to an end. Ye’s accounts were suspended on Instagram and Twitter during the past several days, fashion heavyweights Balenciaga and Vogue ditched him, talent agency CAA ceased representing him, MRC entertainment delayed a documentary about the rapper.

Ye has expressed antisemitic ideas throughout the course of the past month on podcasts, during a chat with Tucker Carlson, on a livestream with Drink Champs, and on his now-suspended social media sites. Ye has gained support from white nationalist organizations as a result of his acts; on Monday, a neo-Nazi group in Los Angeles unfurled a banner above a highway reading, “Kanye is right about the Jews.”

Adidas announced Tuesday that it had conducted a “thorough review,” that it would immediately halt production of its line of Yeezy products, and that it would also stop making payments to Ye and his businesses. Adidas added that Ye’s remarks went against the company’s “values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect, and fairness.”

Ye remarked, “I can say antisemitic things and Adidas cannot drop me,” during the webcast with Drink Champs. Ye and Adidas originally collaborated in 2013 after the brand persuaded the rapper to break up with Nike. Adidas claimed that ending its deal with the rapper will lose them over $250 million in fourth-quarter sales since the collaboration, which produced the highly coveted Yeezy sneaker brand, was so successful.

The depth of derangement in Kanye’s behavior calls his mental state into question. His troubled mental state has been on full view in tweetstorms and on Instagram. Given the recent bipolar diagnosis, is it fair or right to judge Kanye to the same extent we’d just someone else? One important perspective is what, while we’re all ultimately accountable for our actions, simply judging and cutting down relationships is not a helpful response. Perhaps we ought to be supporting West now when he needs help. After all he has given us, it seems the least we can do.