Adidas Ends Almost Decade-Long Partnership with Kanye West

In a statement on Tuesday, Adidas officially announced the ending of its partnership with Ye, also known as Kanye West, effective immediately. 

Adidas is following suit with many other companies that severed ties with West this month after a slew of antisemitic comments and hate speech. According to a statement made by Adidas, the company explained it “does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech” and West’s recent behavior “violated the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness.” 

Additionally, Adidas announced in the statement it will “end production of Yeezy branded products and stop all payments to Ye and his companies.” 

This announcement comes 14 days after Kayne West started his controversial rant and many people believed that Adidas should have cut ties much sooner.  

CNBC recapped a LinkedIn post by Adidas Employee, Sarah Camhi, in which she expressed her disappointment with the company on Monday. “We need to do better as a brand. We need to do better for our employees and we need to do better for our communities. Until adidas takes a stand, I will not stand with Adidas,” she wrote. 

She claimed that Adidas had not acknowledged the comments made by West to the public or its employees. 

Camhi’s post racked up 1,200 comments and 801 reposts in just 17 hours. 

According to CNBC, “Adidas fell 4% in morning trading in Frankfurt, Germany, after Bloomberg reported early in the day it was planning to end the partnership.” 

David Swartz, Morningstar analyst, told Footwear News “the Yeezy brand makes nearly $2 billion a year for Adidas, 10% of its revenue.”

Previously, Balenciaga and Vogue announced their dissociation from West. Talent agency CAA also announced he was no longer a client.