Kanye West Destroyed His Yeezy Empire With Adidas Deal Collapse

The reckoning of Kanye West may feel long overdue, especially if you’ve been on the receiving end of his dangerous rhetoric and actions for years. As Karen Attiah recently wrote in the Washington Post: “Ye’s open flirtation with anti-Blackness in the past decade had no meaningful consequences.”

In recent years, the rapper turned designer, whose legal name is now Ye, has suggested that 400 years of chattel slavery was “a choice” and sported the confederate flag as a fashion statement. He defended the likes of Bill Cosby and R. Kelly; aligned himself with controversial figures like DaBaby, Marilyn Manson, and former president Donald Trump; and spoke out in support of the MAGA movement during the height of tensions in the country.

None of these acts seemed to threaten his blossoming sneaker and apparel empire, which turned Ye into a billionaire, at least on paper. The 45-year-old, who has spoken regularly about his relationship with his late mom, his bipolar disorder, and society’s treatment of Black Americans, has never shied away from saying whatever he wants. And he also does as he pleases, whether that’s a failed 2020 presidential run or using Yeezy apparel to broadcast white supremacist messages.

But this fall, even the corporate collaborators who had long benefited from Ye’s cultural capital found themselves backed into a corner, as their cash cow plummeted them into a moral crisis. The first of his business dealings came to an end in September, when the announcement came that the Yeezy Gap 10-year-deal, said to be worth billions, was ending after only two years.

In an interview with Bloomberg last month, Ye declared that he was ready to “go it alone” and outlined his vision for Yeezy stores and Donda campuses across the country, independent of his current collaborators. According to Insider, his deals with Gap and Adidas were originally set to end in 2030 and 2026.

The cult of Ye has attempted to rationalize the fallout as all part of a master plan for the artist to emancipate himself from his corporate partners. “Did Kanye just finesse his way out of all of his contracts LMFAO,” tweeted Canadian rapper 88Camino.

But the reality is that in a matter of weeks, the Yeezy empire has unraveled, Ye’s fashion affiliations have evaporated, and minority communities have been made targets of hate speech and dangerous rhetoric, at the same time that Ye has appeared in multiple interviews on mainstream platforms decrying so-called cancel culture and supposed attempts to silence him.

Ye dared collaborators to divest their business interests in the past few weeks by bragging that his biggest collaborator, Adidas, wouldn’t be able to drop him for antisemitic comments. And they said bet.

His behavior has come at the cost of his family, friends, and business associates, but whether Ye is well and truly canceled is still to be seen. What is clearer is the fact that he is no longer a billionaire by Forbes’ standards. Here’s how Ye took a sledgehammer to his brand.