At some point, they at Adidas began to behave like firefighters who rotate on particularly dangerous missions: those who are on duty at the front are ordered back after a short time for their own protection in order to regenerate and find new strength. You have to imagine the same thing with the people who worked for Adidas with Kanye West. The US rapper who now calls himself Ye and brought the German sporting goods company billions in sales with his Yeezy shoe collection until Adidas kicked him out after anti-Semitic, sexist and racist abuse. “We are on alert,” an Adidas manager wrote in an internal chat along with three emojis with flashing sirens. “The front row is completely exhausted and doesn’t feel supported or comfortable with how things are going.”
On the one hand, they were popular jobs, very close to being a superstar who is considered a global style icon. On the other hand, these jobs also ate people up, because with West genius and madness seem to blur. To help its own employees endure this, Adidas is said to have given them a meditation app, offered group therapy and even set up a kind of helpline. That’s the way it is in a report by the New York Times (NYT).
Alcohol, porn, sexist tirades
Comprehensively and enriched with many details from internal documents, he reconstructs a toxic relationship into which Adidas was drawn ever deeper the more dependent it became on sales – according to plans, the Yeezy shoes were supposed to bring in 1.8 billion euros in 2022. In return, they even accepted that West would throw shoes at even top managers. The NYT’s accusation: Adidas tolerated and watched West’s misconduct for almost a decade.
The fateful relationship began in 2013, when Adidas, with an eight percent market share in the sneaker business in the USA, was far behind its rival Nike with almost 50 percent. Kanye West should change that. He traveled to Herzogenaurach to explain his ideas to designers at Adidas headquarters. When they presented him with a shoe design, he is said to have drawn a swastika next to it. And a little later, at a meeting in his apartment in Manhattan, he showed Adidas people a porno – to stimulate creativity. Should the alarm bells have already been ringing? Probably, but on the other hand, business was excellent from the start: Yeezy shoes delighted the fashion world and pushed Adidas forward in the sports fashion segment.
Internally, however, there was more and more trouble. According to the NYT, West once advised a Jewish Adidas employee to kiss a picture of Hitler every day. And while sales, profits and West’s commissions rose rapidly, his behavior became increasingly bizarre. There is talk of alcohol and porn, of sexist tirades and alternating between anger and depression. Once West wrote Bible verses and painted spaceships on a bed sheet, another time he showed up in an office with suitcases full of pans, pots and Tupperware. Nevertheless, Adidas continued to sign new, more generous contracts with him.
“I can say anti-Semitic things and Adidas can’t drop me.”
West did not comment to the NYT. An Adidas spokesman did not want to provide any details when asked, but referred to an internal investigation after West’s expulsion that did not find any misconduct on the part of management. According to the NYT report, Adidas employees are said to have complained more frequently, including to former Adidas board member Eric Liedtke and later to CEO Kasper Rorsted. Both also tried to catch West and keep him at bay, but in vain. “Kasper just spoke to him,” Liedtke noted in 2019. “It started slowly, but developed into a full-blown rant.”
The Kanye West chapter isn’t over yet: Adidas is currently selling the last Yeezy sneakers that had already been produced at the time of the release.
(Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images/AFP)
At a meeting with Liedtke and Rorsted in Chicago in 2018, West is said to have demanded a position on the supervisory board, the job as creative director or even the chairmanship of the board. Another time, the rapper ignored both board members, instead threw sneakers across the room and then left angrily. In 2022, the situation finally escalated: West’s outbursts became more frequent, more racist and extremist. “I can say anti-Semitic things and Adidas can’t drop me,” he believed. Nine days later, the company pulled the plug: “Ye’s recent statements and actions are unacceptable, hateful and dangerous,” Adidas said in a statement. “They violate the company’s values such as diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness.”
However, the Adidas West file is not closed; The last Yeezy collection that had already been produced at the time of its release is currently being sold. Kanye collects royalties, Adidas has already donated more than 100 million euros to organizations that fight against racism and anti-Semitism.