After mounting pressure to act, adidas group has confirmed on October 25 that it has officially terminated its partnership with Kanye West and YEEZY with immediate effect following the anti-Semitic comments and hateful speech he doubled down on throughout October.
A statement published on the adidas Group website read: “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,” it continued. “adidas will stop the adidas YEEZY business with immediate effect.”
Social media calls for the German sports brand to follow the likes of Balenciaga, Anna Wintour, and Kanye's former talent agency CAA, which distanced themselves from Ye after he began inexplicably escalating his Instagram outbursts to anti-Semitic tweets, had been rising since early October.
Up until October 25, the only action adidas had taken following his comments was on October 6 when the German sportswear company announced that its YEEZY partnership was “under review” but didn't take any further public action.
Seemingly the final straw for adidas was on October 23, when a group of neo-Nazis flew banners over drivers which supported Kanye's statements, as they performed Nazi salutes to said passing motorists.
This follows months of Kanye testing the limits of, and threating to end, YEEZY's adidas and GAP contracts himself.
Now, the decision has been made for Kanye despite recent claims of immunity.
"The thing about me and adidas is like, I can literally say anti-Semitic shit and they cant drop me," he boasted on an October 16 appearance on the Drink Champs podcast, emphasizing the latter statement by repeating it.
"Now what?"
Now, adidas and YEEZY are over.
