Kanye West Calls Out Adidas While Sharing Alleged Internal Document: ‘It All Comes Down to Human Rights’
Written by djfrosty on March 1, 2024
Kanye West isn’t letting up on Adidas. The rapper — who now goes by Ye — took to Instagram Thursday night (Feb. 29) to share photo of an alleged corporate document instructing the apparel giant’s employees how to talk to consumers about the company selling the Yeezy line once again.
With a publish date of Feb. 26, the alleged internal doc explains: “Adidas is the sole owner of the product, including the design rights for existing products as well as previous colorways. The products are existing Yeezy designs initiated in 2022. Adidas honored contractual obligations and discussed releasing products prior to the announcement with the former partner.”
The document also appears to ask employees to not continue extensive conversations with customers surrounding the Yeezy line, and instead points them to a general email to voice their concerns.
Trending on Billboard
“This is the document that they give employees at adidas when asked questions about Yeezy,” the rapper claimed in the caption of his post. “There is an overlap to adidas and Kim ignoring my opinion … or people ignoring my name change or the entire celebrity culture ostracizing me for my political opinion It all comes down to human rights which you sacrifice when you’re stigmatized with mental issues All these situations are actually far crazier than what I’ve been branded to be.”
Billboard has reached out to reps for Adidas for comment, and has not yet been able to verify the veracity of the document. Billboard has also contacted reps for Ye and Kim Kardashian, who was married to the rapper from 2014 to 2022.
Adidas announced Monday that it would sell some of its remaining Yeezy inventory, after splitting with Ye in 2022 following his string of hate speech and antisemitic comments. Since discontinuing the partnership, Adidas says it has donated some proceeds from such sales to groups that “combat discrimination and hate, including racism and antisemitism.”
After Adidas’ announcement this week that Yeezys are returning to the market, Ye put the brand on blast for selling “fake Yeezys” and called for his fans to boycott the company altogether.
“Anybody who loves Ye would not buy these fake Yeezys I never made these color ways I’m not getting paid off of them and adidas is suing me,” he wrote at the time. “All the new non-approved 350’s are cooorny and everybody know the 350 been corny.”
He also alleged that Adidas was suing him for $250 million, but as of earlier this week, there’s no evidence that Adidas has filed any kind of new lawsuit against West or his companies.
However, Adidas disclosed that it had filed a private arbitration case against West’s Yeezy LLC in December 2022 on the grounds that the rapper’s “racist, antisemitic, and other offensive public statements and conduct” had violated their partnership agreement and had caused “considerable damage to its brand.”
West may be referring to the arbitration case in claiming that the athletic wear brand was “suing” him. It’s unclear whether $250 million is at stake in that case, or whether that case is still ongoing, since arbitration proceedings are litigated behind closed doors.
The company started to sell Yeezy products again in May 2023 after cutting ties with West in the year prior.