Adidas has ended its partnership with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West over his offensive and antisemitic remarks, the latest company to cut ties with Ye and a decision that the German sportwear company said would hit its bottom line.
“Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech,” the company said in a statement Tuesday. “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 company faced pressure to cut ties with Ye, with celebrities and others on social media urging Adidas to act. It said at the beginning of the month that it was placing its lucrative sneaker deal with the rapper under review.
Adidas said Tuesday that it conducted a “thorough review” and would immediately stop production of its line of Yeezy products and stop payments to Ye and his companies. The sportswear company said it was expected to take a hit of up to 250 million euros ($246 million) to its net income this year from the move.
The move by Adidas, whose CEO Kasper Rorsted is stepping down next year, comes after Ye was suspended from Twitter and Instagram this month over antisemitic posts that the social networks said violated their policies.
He recently suggested slavery was a choice and called the COVID-19 vaccine the “mark of the beast,” among other comments. He also was criticized for wearing a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt to his Yeezy collection show in Paris.
Ye’s talent agency, CAA, has dropped him, and the MRC studio announced Monday that it is shelving a complete documentary about the rapper.
The Balenciaga fashion house cut ties with Ye last week, according to Women’s Wear Daily. JPMorganChase and Ye have ended their business relationship, although the banking breakup was in the works even before Ye’s antisemitic comments.
In recent weeks, Ye also has ended his company’s association with Gap and has told Bloomberg that he plans to cut ties with his corporate suppliers.
After he was suspended from Twitter and Facebook, Ye offered to buy conservative social network Parler.
Demonstrators on a Los Angeles overpass Saturday unfurled a banner praising Ye’s antisemitic comments, prompting an outcry on social media from celebrities and others who said they stand with Jewish people.
(AP)
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17 Responses
Probably more likely they cut ties because he’s a hard right winger, and just trying to get credit for the anti-anti semitism part. Doubt these companies love Jews that much
it isn’t about this man….it is about who wants him OUT
Trump’s social network (Truth Social) CEO Devin Nunes said that he and Trump are delighted that Kanye West is buying the Parler social network (another right-wing online cesspool) and that it was important that Ye/West and other “conservatives” be allowed to express their views without censorship or moderation. He refused several times to condemn the blatant anti-semitic comments saying that wasn’t his business. Trump himself has been “retweeting” (or whatever the call it on Truth Social) posts that are supportive of West w/o himself saying anything about the anti-semitic rants.
we will know how anti semetic the world is based on how much Yeezy products sell for aftermarket.
Haven’t heard any condemnation of this lowlife billionaire from his pal the ex president. I guess there are ” good people on both sides”.
Thank you, Adidas
Adidas is a German company. Adolf Dassler, founder of Adidas, joined the Nazi Party in 1933 along with his brother. The two also became members of the National Socialist Motor Corps. Adolf also took the rank of Sportwart in the Hitler Youth from 1935 until the end of the war.
During WWII, Adidas supplied the Wehrmacht with shoes. In 1943, they halted shoe production and began to manufacture anti-tank weapons. From 1942 to 1945, there were slave laborers working at the two Adidas factories. The company claims there were only nine slave laborers, but who would believe them.
You can be sure that many of the shoes the Jews at Sachsenhausen were forced by the Nazis to test out were Adidas. At that camp, the Germans made the prisoners wear new shoe prototypes many times smaller than their feet and walk for miles on end until their toes broke. It is one of the lesser-known atrocities of the War. German shoe companies wanted to test the strength and durability of their new models, and the interned Jews were perfect for the job. But just to be sadistic, the Germans made sure to always use shoes many times smaller than the prisoners’ feet, which of course meant that the test runs of the shoes were worthless. When a prisoner fell over writhing in pain, they were either tortured, starved, shot, or hanged. “D-IX,” the notorious performance-enhancing cocktail of coke, meth, and oxycodone was tested on the prisoners of Sachsenhausen before it was approved and given to German military units to keep them high when in action.
Adidas is a Nazi company through and through. No Jew should buy their products.
The United States has a 1st amendment called free speech – even if it’s hateful and you disagree with it doesn’t mean that Ye doesn’t get to express his opinion and maybe learn a thing or two from civil conversation and not censorship. Free speech can be hateful at times – that’s part and parcel of a free society. Throughout history censorship has not diminished violence nor bloodshed. And FYI – in early 1920’s Germany had a censorship law that ultimately could not keep up with the Nazi party but stricter censorship laws were not the reason for the rise of the Nazi party quite the contrary it helped them censor opposing views to their party. It was the permissive attitude for criminal behavior.
And btw – this just feeds into Ye’s anti-Semitic delusion that Jews run the world – they just cancelled him. It fits right into this age old conspiracy. So I wouldn’t think this is a win for anyone. Anti Semitism exists and always existed. It’s not going anywhere.
I love the National Moron Association co-presided by the ever-so-dumb rt and the equally infamous katanhadorah going berserk for this bipolar little nobody’s tweets but you won’t hear a peep from the NMA when sitting and serving congress members from their beloved demonrat party threat or question the very existence of the only Jewish State. Can’t expect much from people with no functional braincells left, after all.
Ari Knobler,
Thank you for providing this background.
I never even knew Adidas was a German company. How many frum kids, including my own, wear Adidas products, most probably without knowing this. Why are they any different than Mercedes or BMW, whose cars I’d never buy?
Ari Knobler,
Can you provide any sources for what you wrote here?
@ Ari Knobler,
Do you drive a Ford, a VW, a Porsche, take Bayer aspirin, have an account in CHASE, use IBM equipment?
Spare us your ignorance and hypocrisy!
FYI, Leica made cameras for Wehrmacht, WHILE SAVING EVERY JEW WHO WORKED FOR THEM AND THEIR FAMILIES!
Wilhelm Canaris Chief of Abwehr saved over 500 Jews, including Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn!
Oscar Schindler ran a factory for the Germans and saved 1500 Jews!
Anecdotal incidents to be sure, not everyone was as pure evil as you propose it to be!
But too many of our Haymish and Hymish brethren are altogether too comfy with their Mercedes, VW and BMW cars. NTW, (Smart is a subsidiary of Mercedes Benz.) Seemingly too many if our current generation of Acheinu don’t care about supporting
But too many of our Haymish and Hymish brethren are altogether too comfy with their Mercedes, VW and BMW cars. NTW, (Smart is a subsidiary of Mercedes Benz.) Seemingly too many if our current generation of Acheinu don’t care about supporting German Nazi supporters of yesteryear.
https://www.jta.org/2022/10/24/culture/the-nazi-history-of-adidas-the-sportswear-giant-that-hasnt-dropped-kanye-west-over-antisemitism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adidas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Dassler
https://www.holocausthistoricalsociety.org.uk/contents/concentrationcamps/sachsenhausen.html
https://archives.wartimeni.com/wwiini-sachsenhausen-concentration-camp-berlin-11/
https://theshoeman647325124.wordpress.com/2020/11/03/bloody-shoes-shoe-test-tracks-sachsenhausen/
Kach: I hope you get better.
He’s a real Tushy face
@ Ari Knobler
I hope you don’t!