Woah! Kanye “no longer has a place on the Forbes billionaires’ list” after Adidas Cut Ties With Him
Socialites, get a load of this! Kanye lost a couple of deals and partnerships following the anti-semitic comments he made this month.
Adidas became the latest company to terminate its partnerships with Ye over his antics. In a statement shared Tuesday, the German sportswear giant said, “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.” The company explained that their move against Kanye would have a short-term negative impact of up to 250 million euros ($246 million) on net income in 2022 due to high seasonality in the fourth quarter.
Now, just hours after the big announcement, Forbes reported that Ye had lost his billionaire status in the wake of Adidas ending their partnership with the controversial entertainer. While Adidas on its own did not make him lose his membership of the the ten-digit club, Forbes say it’s a combination of several deals, including Gap, falling apart of late.
This all comes just a day after adidas Director of Trade Marketing, Sarah Camhi, who is of Jewish heritage, expressed that the brand needs to do better for its employees and community. Through a public LinkedIn post, Camhi noted that adidas recently held its “Global Week of Inclusion” during Ye’s string of controversial social media rants but remained silent about his remarks. Camhi also said that Adidas had yet to address the situation regarding Ye internally to its employees.
“We need to do better as a brand,” Camhi writes. “We need to do better for our employees and we need to do better for our communities. Until Adidas takes a stand, I will not stand with Adidas.”
Kanye previously issued an apology for hurting people with his words but said he didn’t regret what he said.
“I will say I’m sorry for the people that I hurt with the ‘Death Con’ — the confusion that I caused,” he said on Sunday (Oct. 8).
“I feel like I caused hurt and confusion. And I’m sorry for the families of the people that had nothing to do with the trauma that I have been through and that I used my platform, where you say hurt people hurt people, and I was hurt.”
He continued in the interview, saying, “I gotta let go of that and free myself of the trauma and say, ‘look, I’m just gonna give it all up to God right now,’” he continued, “and say to those families that I hurt, I really wanna give you guys a big hug and I’m sorry for hurting you with my comments.”