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Adidas, the German sportswear manufacturer, has ended its partnership with African-American billionaire Kanye West after a series of offensive and antisemitic comments made by the musician-turned-business-mogul.
In a press release issued from its headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany, the sportswear maker revealed that it will stop producing Yeezy-branded products and stop making payments to Ye’s businesses as a result of its decision to sever ties with him.
“Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech,” the company stated in reaction to the antisemitic comments the rapper made on his social media accounts. Furthermore, his recent comments and actions were unacceptable, hateful, and dangerous, and they violated the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect, and fairness.
West, now known as “Ye,” launched his clothing line, including his Yeezy boost sneakers with Adidas, in 2013, disrupting the retail industry and quickly propelling his Yeezy brand to a $2.9-billion business.
The sportswear giant’s recent decision to cancel the deal that grew the Yeezy line with Ye into a brand that accounted for up to €1.5 billion ($1.47 billion) of Adidas’ total sales over the past decade will cost it up to €250 million ($247 million) in earnings this year.
As a result of the decision to cut ties with Ye and Yeezy brand, Adidas shares fell 4.76 percent to €99.00 ($98.64) at the time of writing, extending the sportswear maker’s year-to-date loss to 61.8 percent, as investors continued to reduce their exposure to the stock.
Last week, the African-American multi-industry creative entrepreneur agreed to purchase social networking platform Parler for an undisclosed sum after being suspended from Twitter and Instagram for violating their content policies due to anti-Semitic remarks he posted on his social media accounts.
“When I got kicked off of Instagram and Twitter at the time, I knew it was time to acquire my own platform,” Ye explained to Bloomberg at the time. “People had talked about it and mentioned it for years, but enough was enough.”
He stated that Parler is for people like him who have been punished by much larger platforms, and that the conservative social networking platform will be used as a net for people who have been bullied by the thought police to come and speak their minds.
