According to a recent report by The New York Times, Adidas’ decision to sever ties with rapper Kanye West last year was not solely in response to his public antisemitic rants.
The Times revealed that there had been a deeper undercurrent for nearly a decade since the inception of their partnership in 2013.
Their partnership propelled West into a billionaire, and made Adidas a reported $1 billion annually in sales.
The brand seemed to put profits over the rapper’s bad behavior, until the optics became too damning to ignore in 2022, when West went off the rails.
Kanye West's adidas Yeezy might've been doomed from the start.
According to a recent New York Times investigation, the Three Stripes tolerated almost a decade of misconduct from Ye.
Why?: Profits. pic.twitter.com/QYF3IVKgxe
— Sneaker News (@SneakerNews) October 27, 2023
He unveiled “White Lives Matter” t-shirts at his Yeezy show during Paris Fashion Week, followed by a series of antisemitic remarks that kicked off in October of last year.
West tweeted that he was “going death con 3 on Jewish people,” in an apparent riff on the United States military’s defense readiness condition alert system.
“The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda,” he continued in a since the deleted post.
As the company faced public outcry to cut ties with the rapper, West bragged about how they wouldn’t in an interview on the “Drink Champs” podcast.
“The thing about me and Adidas is like, I can literally say antisemitic s**t, and they can’t drop me,” he remarked. “I can say antisemitic things, and Adidas can’t drop me. Now what? Now what?”
He was clearly mistaken, as the athletic brand dumped him on October 25, releasing a statement that Adidas “does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech.”
Though the company complained that they would take a $247 million loss by yanking Yeezy products off shelves.
The brand made the decision in the nick of time, as West went on Alex Jones’ InfoWars show on December 1, and praised Hitler.
“Every human being has something of value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler. How about that one,” he brazenly stated.
When Jones replied that West has a “bit of a Hitler fetish going on,” the rapper shot back, “It’s not a fetish. I just like information.”
“I don’t like the word ‘evil’ next to Nazis,” he continued. “I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazis.”
Eventually going onto say, “I do love Hitler. I do love the Zionists.”
Adidas began investigating West’s inappropriate workplace in late November, after ex-employees accused the company of a lacking response to the behavior.
Almost a year later, and the Times has revealed that West’s antisemitic views date back to the beginning of the partnership.
Interviews with present and former Adidas employees, as well as individuals close to West, along with a meticulous review of internal documents, including contracts, text messages, and financial records, shed light on a “troubling fixation on Jews and Hitler” exhibited by the artist.
During a 2013 meeting with Adidas designers at the company’s German headquarters, West allegedly drew a swastika on an Adidas sketch and later commanded a Jewish Adidas executive to kiss a portrait of Hitler daily.
Sources suggest that he even expressed admiration for Hitler’s skill in propaganda.
Prior to the swastika incident, the “Gold Digger” rapper reportedly subjected Adidas executives to pornography during a meeting at his Manhattan apartment.
A troubling practice that continued until last year, when he allegedly caught Adidas officials off-guard in Los Angeles by springing a pornographic film on them.
West’s partnership contract with Adidas did include a clause that permitted termination if the rapper’s behavior tarnished the brand’s reputation.
However, it seems like executives had never thought about severing their ties, until last year when public scrutiny intensified and other entities, like Balenciaga, Creative Arts Agency, and JP Morgan ended their relationships with West.
Instead of stringent action, Adidas executives allegedly chose to “adapt” to West’s erratic conduct.
They established a group chat called “Yzy hotline” where employees strategized on how to handle his antics.
The company adopted a firefighting approach, with employees rotating on and off the front lines of dealing with the rapper’s demanding behavior, extreme mood swings, and disruptive shoe-throwing incidents.
When Adidas finally did cut West off, they still managed to make the rapper and themselves more money when they released the first set of Yeezy sneakers from the $1.6 billion they still had in stock.
As of August, Adidas raked in $437 million from the inventory, a small portion of which, they donated to groups fighting antisemitism.
The shoe drop expected in November has been postponed indefinitely, due to the Israel-Hamas War, or perhaps the Times report.