The sports company has cut ties with rapper Kanye West due to his antisemitic and white supremacist comments on social media.
It has ended production of West’s Yeezy brand and will stop all payments to Ye (West’s name) and his companies.
Adidas issued a statement assuring its customers and investors that it “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.”
Gap had also said in September that it would end its Yeezy Gap partnership.
“We are taking immediate steps to remove the Yeezy Gap product from our stores and we have shut down YeezyGap.com.”
“Antisemitism, racism and hate in any form are inexcusable and not tolerated… We are partnering with organizations that combat hate and discrimination,” said Gap on its Instagram account.
Adidas, began its partnership with Ye in 2013. The move is expected to have a negative impact of up to $246 million USD in the short term.
The decision by Adidas comes in the wake of pressure from netizens demanding that the company end its partnerships with West after an antisemitic hategroup was accused of hanging a banner on a Los Angeles freeway on October 22 that read “Kanye is right about the Jews”.
Luxury designer brand Balenciaga and talent scout Creative Artists Agency also cut ties with Ye in early October.
In addition, film and television production company MRC has also cancelled airing its documentary on the rapper.
“Kanye is a producer and sampler of music. Last week he sampled and remixed a classic tune that has charted for over 3,000 years – the lie that Jews are evil and conspire to control the world for their own gain… As leaders of this company (a Jew, a Muslim and a Christian) we feel duty bound to say to all of you this is a pernicious, terrible use of false logic,” said the MRC on Oct 24.
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