Adidas and controversial rapper Kanye West are going their separate ways. The sporting goods company announced on Tuesday in Herzogenaurach that it was ending the successful partnership with the rapper, who is now called Ye, with immediate effect. “Ye’s recent statements and actions are unacceptable, hateful and dangerous,” Adidas said. “They go against the company’s values such as diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness.”
The production of the joint product line “Yeezy” will be discontinued with immediate effect, the statement said. That will cost Adidas up to 250 million euros in profit in the current fourth quarter. The group also pointed out that it was “the sole owner of all design rights to existing products and to previous and new color schemes within the framework of the partnership”.
“The daily new anti-Semitic derailments of the rapper are unbearable for the Jews in Germany and all over the world,” the President of the Central Council, Josef Schuster, told the editorial network Germany on Tuesday and asked Adidas to end the cooperation. The fashion brand Balenciaga recently announced that it was no longer planning any further projects with Ye.
