The multi-billion dollar partnership between Adidas and Ye is officially under review.
Around noon today, Adidas released the following statement:
Adidas has always been synonymous with creativity, innovation and supporting athletes and artists to realize their vision. The Adidas Yeezy partnership is one of the most successful collaborations in the history of our industry. We are proud of our team who have worked tirelessly throughout our collaboration with Ye and the iconic products that have come out of it. We also recognize that all successful partnerships are rooted in mutual respect and shared values. After repeated efforts to resolve the situation privately, we have made the decision to place the partnership under review. We will continue to co-manage the current product during this time.
This doesn’t seem to reflect a change in the way Yeezys are sold yet. Several retailers Complex contacted said they were still licensed to sell the shoes, and email marketing from Adidas and Yeezy Supply were still advertising Yeezy sneakers as recently as this morning. An Adidas spokesperson declined to elaborate on how the review period would change its relationship with Yeezy in the short term.
Ye has since responded to the news on Instagram. “FUUUUUUCK ADIDAS I AM ADIDAS ADIDAS RAPED AND STOLEN MY DESIGNS,” he wrote.
Adidas’ announcement comes after a particularly contentious month for Ye, who has spent much of the past few weeks on social media calling out partners such as Adidas and Gap, with the latter finally announcing that he would “end” to the collaboration after Ye’s lawyers accused the company of breaching their contract.
Ye began airing his recent grievances with Adidas in June, when he called out the Three Stripes for producing “fake Yeezy” slides. His June messages called Kasper Rørsted, the soon-to-be-replaced Adidas CEO, as well as senior vice president and general manager Daniel Cherry III, saying he wanted to speak directly with Rørsted rather than Cherry.
Cherry would again become the target of Ye’s posts in September, with the Yeezy founder suggesting that Cherry had made decisions for the Yeezy brand without Ye’s approval. Ye also repeatedly called members of Adidas’ supervisory board during this period, the posts which he said were deleted by Instagram due to their aggressive nature.
This week, Ye managed to stir up more controversy by showcasing a “White Lives Matter” t-shirt in her YZY SZN 9 show at Paris Fashion Week. After the t-shirts were criticized by vogue Global fashion editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, who was in attendance, Ye doubled down on her decision to spread the message and attacked Karefa-Johnson on social media.
