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German sporting goods maker Adidas fell 5% on the stock market after ending its cooperation with American rapper and designer Kanye West, in response to a series of behaviors by the artist that the company considered “unacceptable”.
To the drop in sales in China and the cost of having ceased operations in Russia, a new ingredient is added that will make 2022 for Adidas a year worth forgetting: the termination of its commercial relationship with the American star Kanye West.
The decision, effective immediately, followed the rapper’s recent anti-Semitic and racist statements, which the company called “unacceptable.”
“Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness,” Adidas argued, using the rapper’s stage name.
The closure of relations between the German company and Yeezy, the artist’s brand, “will have a short-term negative impact” of up to 250 million dollars on Adidas’ net income this year, the German company acknowledged.
Kanye West, a millionaire and controversial artist
Yeezy has stirred controversy in recent months by publicly ending major corporate ties and due to social media outbursts against other celebrities.
His Twitter and Instagram accounts have been restricted and social media platforms have removed some of his online posts that users have called “anti-Semitic.”
For example, he mentioned Jared Kushner, a Jew and the son-in-law of former President Donald Trump, saying that he was the man behind Middle East peace treaties created just to “make money.”
“I don’t think they have the ability to do anything on their own. I think they were born with money in their heads,” he declared on his social networks.
Previously, West said in an interview on the Drink Champs podcast that George Floyd, the African American killed by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020, died of drug use and not asphyxiation caused by police officer Derek Chauvin, as confirmed by the autopsy and the court ruling that convicted the agent.
In another of his controversial outings, the rapper showed off a t-shirt bearing the message “White Lives Matter,” a slogan often used by white supremacists in response to the Black anti-racism movement, during a Paris fashion show. Lives Matter.
Therefore, Adidas’ decision was not surprising. Days earlier, the sporting goods multinational put its partnership with Kanye West under review “after repeated efforts to resolve the situation privately.”
West produced several best-selling Adidas sneakers branded “Yeezy” that cost between $200 and $700 and helped the brand close the gap with Nike in the US market. However, the commercial relationship now ends by unilateral decision of the firm, which the artist previously accused of stealing his designs for his own products.
With Reuters and EFE
