Success: After over 180,000 sign our petition, Adidas finally cuts ties with Kanye West

After over 180,000 people signed our petition over the past several days, global retailer Adidas has finally dropped its partnership with Ye (also known as Kanye West) following his repeated antisemitic outbursts.

The petition went viral and was endorsed by numerous celebrities and influencers around the world.

Adidas’ belated decision comes after other brands like Balenciaga and Vogue, and agencies like Creative Artists Agency cut ties with the artist. His label Universal also denounced his comments, if rather weakly, and his own lawyer has dropped him as a client. Leading film studio MRC has also shelved a documentary about him.

On his partnership with Adidas, Ye has said: “The thing about me and Adidas is like, I can literally say antisemitic s*** and they can’t drop me. I can say antisemitic things and Adidas can’t drop me. Now what?”

Ye now knows.

A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Adidas has finally joined other brands and agencies and cut ties with Ye (Kanye West). This would not have happened without the over 180,000 who signed our petition and the celebrities and influencers on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world who helped promote it and amplified the message. A company with a Nazi past must be at the forefront, not the rearguard, of fighting antisemitism. But better late than never. No company should profit from antisemitism.

“As for Ye, who has spent the last two weeks threatening Jews and empowering neo-Nazis, he said that he could say antisemitic things yet Adidas could not drop him and asked ‘now what?’ Now he knows.”

A spokesperson for Adidas said in a statement: “Adidas 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. After a thorough review, the company has taken the decision to terminate the partnership with Ye immediately, end production of Yeezy branded products and stop all payments to Ye and his companies. Adidas will stop the Adidas Yeezy business with immediate effect.”

Ye has posted brazen antisemitic statements in the past month on social media.

• On 7th October 2022, he posted on Instagram: “Ima use you as an example to show the Jewish people that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me.”
• Two days later he tweeted: “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con [sic] 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.” 

On an episode of the Drink Champs podcast, aired on 16th October 2022, Ye:

• Said: “The thing about me and Adidas is like, I can literally say antisemitic s*** and they can’t drop me. I can say antisemitic things and Adidas can’t drop me. Now what?”
• Demanded: “I want all the Jewish children to look at they daddy and say ‘Why is Ye mad at us?’”
• Stated that was “Me Too-ing the Jewish culture. I’m saying y’all gotta stand up and admit to what y’all been doing, and y’all just got away with it for so long, that y’all ain’t even realise what y’all doing.”
• Referred throughout the interview to “Jewish business secrets”, “Jewish Zionists”, and stated how Jewish people in the entertainment industry “will take one of us, the brightest of us, that can really feed a whole village, and they’ll take us and milk us until we die.”
• Claimed that he had been “blocked out” by “the Jewish media”.
• Said: “Jewish people have owned the Black voice, whether it’s through us wearing a Ralph Lauren shirt, or it’s all of us being signed to a record label, or having a Jewish manager, or being signed to a Jewish basketball team, or doing a movie on a Jewish platform like Disney.”
• Doubled down on his tweet about “going death con [sic] 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE”, claiming that he “is Jewish also”, adding: “We’re not just Black. We are Jew [sic], just like the Jewish people…I can’t be an antisemite.”
• Claimed that he responded to being invited to a Holocaust museum by saying: “I want you to visit Planned Parenthood. That’s our Holocaust museum.” 
• Complained about being photographed in public, saying: “You get used to being screwed by the Jewish media.” 
• Said: “A thing that a Jewish person will always say is they’ll say ‘This is mine’. Something that a Black person built, or any company built, they’ll be like ‘This is mine now’.”
• Referencing fellow rapper Ice Cube, who was criticised for sharing an antisemitic image, said: “You really influenced me to get on this antisemite vibe, and I’m here to finish the job.” (Ice Cube has refuted this claim and distanced himself from Ye.)

In an interview on CUOMO on the NewsNation network, aired on 18th October 2022, Ye:

• Said: “I don’t like the term ‘antisemitic’. It’s been a term that’s allowed people, specifically in my industry, to get away with murder.”
• Made comments referring to the “Jewish underground media mafia”. 
• Claimed “Jewish people own the Black voice.”

According to the International Definition of Antisemitism, examples of antisemitism include “Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions,” and “Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.”