Inside Kanye West’s Adidas partnership: A swastika, tears, thrown shoes, and pornography

A jaw-dropping investigation from the New York Times reveals new details of the partnership between Ye (Kanye West) and Adidas.

The lucrative partnership – more than $1 billion worth of the rapper’s shoes were sold in a year – ended last year after Ye made antisemitic and other offensive, erratic comments.

But this story shows how early in their relationship Adidas knew of his propensity for these inexcusable remarks – and how those warnings of the reputational risks were ignored.

The list of offenses is far too long to recount here, but here is a smattering of lowlights from the Times investigation:

In 2013, he drew a swastika on a shoe at the company’s German headquarters. He told a Jewish Adidas manager to “kiss a picture of Hitler every day.”
In 2019, he reportedly demanded a $1 billion advance and then hurled shoes around a room during a meeting—yet Adidas responded by paying him more.
Ye repeatedly forced Adidas employees, including executives, to watch pornography. The list goes on.

Through it all, the Times reporting found that Adidas ignored warnings that Ye posed a reputational risk to the organization. Even when other companies cut ties with the artist over his public remarks and outrageous behavior, Adidas held on far longer.

Brad Jakeman, a former PepsiCo executive, told the Times that companies must serve the bottom line, of course. Still, they also must protect the organization’s reputation, especially in cases where a spokesperson’s flaws were readily apparent.

“Then you’re left with: At best, the company was sloppy,” Jakeman told the Times. “At worst, it was complicit.”

West did not respond to the Times’s request for comment. Adidas said in a statement it “has no tolerance for hate speech and offensive behavior.”

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