Kanye West
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It’s been a minute since adidas publicly severed ties with Kanye West over his antisemitic outbursts, but now the three-striped brand is being taken to court by investors who feel they waited too long to make the business decision.
Bloomberg is reporting that investors have filed a lawsuit against Adidas claiming that the German sportswear conglomerate knew the risks of partnering with the likes of Kanye West, but rolled the dice anyway and crapped out when it was all said and done. Apparently the higher ups at Adidas did indeed discuss the potential hazard that Kanye West presented back in 2018, but decided to continue their partnership with the controversial artist. That did not end well for anyone.
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In a 2018 annual report, released in March of the following year, Adidas ignored serious issues of partnering with Ye – and the risk to shareholders – by “generally alluding” to the risks “rather than stating that the company had actually considered ending the partnership as a result of West’s personal behavior,” according to the complaint.
Reports in subsequent years failed to disclose that West made anti-Semetic comments to Adidas staff, at one point suggesting that he might name an album after Adolf Hitler, according to the complaint. As the relationship with Ye eroded, so did Adidas shares, until the deal was terminated, according to the filing.
To make matters worse for Adidas, even after they cut ties with Kanye West, the company continued to accept shipments of Yeezy products from suppliers who were still producing it. Ultimately Adidas ended up with $1.3 billion in Yeezy merchandise that they now plan on selling off and giving the money to charity.
The lawsuit, which seeks to representing investors who bought Adidas securities between May 3, 2018 and Feb. 21, also names ousted former CEO Kasper Rorsted as a defendant.
The case is HRSA-ILA Funds v. Adidas, 23-cv-629, US District Court for the District of Oregon.
2023 is looking to be a struggle year for Adidas given everything that Kanye has wrought on the company.
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Kanye West aka Ye is not online but is back outside. His Instagram account has been deactivated but he pulled up to the Fear Of God fashion show this week.
As spotted on Digital Music News, Kanye West is officially off Instagram. His last post on April 18 alluded to him contemplating leaving the social media platform as the visual was a screenshot of the app’s settings page where you can manually deactivate the account immediately. Later that afternoon, his page was gone for good. While his departure from Instagram was abrupt it seems this was inevitable.
Within the last couple of months the rapper’s account had been suspended for violating the terms of use; specifically when he posted some content that was deemed “hate speech”.
Additionally, his energy toward his rival Pete Davidson was largely viewed as harassment and bullying. While he has fallen back from social media, High Snobiety reports he did take the time to attend the Fear Of God runway show on Thursday, April 19.
Held at Hollywood Bowl, the invite-only event was packed with high-profile tastemakers and celebrities but Kanye West and his new wife turned the most heads. Wearing his signature all-black roomy attire with a mask, Yeezy seemed to be in good spirits. His better half on the other hand wore a skin-tight latex body suit that left very little to the imagination.
You can see a video of the couple at the fashion show below.
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Photo: Getty
Kanye West has bid farewell to Instagram.
The rapper took to the social media platform on Tuesday (April 18) to share a screenshot of the Instagram deactivation page, with the confirmation on temporarily removing his account ready to be submitted. Shortly after his announcement, the account was deactivated.
Ye has had ups and downs with Instagram over the past few years. In March 2022, he was suspended from Instagram for 24 hours, after some of his posts violated the platform’s policies on hate speech, bullying and harassment. Leading up to the suspension, Ye posted repeated racial slurs underneath a screenshot of Daily Show host Trevor Noah’s Google page.
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Additionally, he had countless posts dedicated to targeting Pete Davidson, who was dating West’s estranged wife Kim Kardashian at the time. He wrote that the Saturday Night Live comedian, whom he refers to as “Skete,” “will get my kids mom hooked on drugs He’s in rehab every 2 months.”
Ye was suspended again in October 2022 following a string of antisemitic remarks, before returning in March 2023 to declare that he “likes Jewish people again” after watching Jonah Hill’s performance in 21 Jump Street.
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At this point, I just need everyone to raise your hand if you’re not currently suing Kanye West.
Seriously, Ye stays drowning in litigation like his big homie Donald Trump drowns in criminal investigations. In the last couple of years alone, Yeezus has been sued by Black-owned companies and other businesses. He’s been sued by ex-employees for severance pay and unpaid wages. He’s even been sued by his ex-business manager.
Now, the Donda rapper is facing yet another lawsuit by a former teacher at Kanye West’s Donda Academy in Chatsworth, California, who claims the school is nothing more than a cesspool of bullying, limited food choices, disorganization, banned Black history books and students who aren’t actually learning much of anything.
From Page Six:
Cecilia Hailey, who is suing West, the Chatsworth, Calif., school and its directors for racial discrimination and wrongful termination, claimed that the rapper banned books — including “The Lost Boys of Sudan,” by Mark Bixler, which focuses on four victims of the brutal Sudanese conflict.
She told Page Six there are now believed to be between just 35 to 40 pupils left at the $15,000-a-year private Christian school, claiming: “Kanye didn’t want anything to do with a lot of black history books.
“There was one book called ‘The Lost Boys of Sudan’ that was banned because one of the parents got shot in the book. But the kids were reading ‘Harry Potter’ and there are murders in [those] books.
“Kanye wanted nothing to do with history, I was told.”
It’s not terribly surprising that the MAGA-humping “white lives matter” advocate who thinks slavery was a choice and brags about not reading has an apparent aversion to Black history being taught at his school. It’s a little more confusing that, according to the lawsuit, the only thing to eat at Ye’s school is chef-prepared sushi.
“There was no breakfast. You had young kids eating raw sushi and cucumber rolls every day,” Hailey said. “A lot of the kids didn’t like it and that’s all they had.
“This is not a nutritional meal,” she continued. “There are state guidelines and nobody paid attention. I thought it was not only rude but cruel.”
Now, look, I love a good California roll as much as the next sushi lover, but, even as an adult, I’m not trying to eat it five days a week fro breakfast and lunch. And we’re talking about young teens and pre-teens here who may or may not be grossed out by the thought of eating rice and raw fish even once, let alone on a daily basis lest they go hungry while trying to receive an education in a safe environment—which Haily claims they’re not receiving either.
More from Page Six:
She alleged that administrators struggled with behavioral issues and disorganization, and that students were not being taught properly.
“The kids had so many changes, so many teachers. I was like the fourth or fifth they had in the third grade, and they had had 10 principals in three years,” Hailey told Page Six.
“It wasn’t that the kids were bad, it was that there was so much disruption.”
Another big issue, Hailey said, is that students were not disciplined and bullying was widespread.
She recounted an incident in which a fifth-grade student slapped an eighth-grader in the face.
“The next day she came back and bragged about it,” Hailey claimed, “and no action was taken.
“The teachers recommended the child be expelled but nothing was done. The explanation was that Kanye wants certain marginalized kids in school, but this was a kid who assaulted people and didn’t need to be around other children. “
Hailey added of the fifth-grader: “She was kind of dangerous and there were kids living in fear of her, nobody did anything about it. I found that incredibly wrong.”
Page Six has reached out to Love for comment and was not able to reach West, who is not believed to have a representative at the moment.
Hailey said she has no clue why parents are leaving their children enrolled at the school, which reportedly offers no grading system, but suggested they could be star-struck by West, whom she has still never met.
‘I believe that, unfortunately, the school needs to shut down,” she said. “The kids need to be home-schooled because it’s so late in the semester—and get actual grades and transcripts so they can transfer to another school. At the moment, they’re making a mess of these children.”
Hailey’s daughter, Chekarey Byers, another Donda teacher, is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Both women, who are Black, claim they were racially discriminated against when they were fired in early March. The suit alleges that they were terminated in retaliation for reporting code violations at the school and that, before they were let go, their wages were illegally withheld.
The big takeaway here is that being educated by Ye might be just as hazardous as working for or with him.
“Kanye would never have sent his own children to Donda, no way, Haily declared, adding that “it was just a luxury day care.”
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Ye aka Kanye West and his brand Yeezy brand are being sued for nearly 300 racks by a former employee who claims she’s owed as much in severance pay after she was allegedly fired without cause in 2021.
According to court documents obtained by TMZ, the ex-Yeezy employee in question, Dora Szilagyi, claimed the Donda rapper and producer convinced her to quit her job at Addidas—which ended its partnership with Ye last October—so that she could come work for his brand as Yeezy’s “Director of Product Innovation.” She was hired in June 2021 but by December of that year, she was let go for no discernable reason, her lawsuit claims.
From TMZ:
Dora claims she was promised a $275,000 severance payment if she was fired without cause after September 1, 2021 — but she claims it was never paid to her when she was let go in mid-December 2021.
In the suit, Dora says she doesn’t believe Kanye or his company ever intended to follow through on the severance package, and only dangled it to lure her from Adidas.
If what Szilagyi claims is true, that’s a pretty deplorable way for Ye to mess with someone’s livelihood. It’s one thing for the “Jesus Walks” rapper to fumble his own bag by going full YeDolf and alienating brands through antisemitic and pro-Nazi remarks (which his ex-employees have even accused him of making). But now he’s out here getting folks to quit good jobs to come work for him just to be fired shortly after and denied severance? Again, if it’s true, the plaintiff should get all her coins.
Also, maaaaybe it’s time for people to consider the possibility that Ye is not the employer they want.
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Looks like Drake isn’t quite over his beef with Kanye West. The King of the North has just dropped a snippet of his new song, which features Ye’s ex-wife, Kim Kardashian.
A year and change after Drizzy and Kanye seemingly squashed their beef by performing a joint concert in support of Larry Hoover, Drake decided to sample Kim Kardashian on his latest song dubbed “Mommy,” which features a snippet of Kanye’s baby mama saying “I didn’t come this far just to come this far and not be happy.”
Sure it seems innocent enough, but as we’ve learned over the years, Drake likes to play chess not checkers. And he’s constantly putting his pieces in place a few steps ahead of his opponent. (Remember him and his team rocking Chris Paul jerseys for “no reason” years ago?)
And let us not forget his bars on the Her Loss track “Circo Loco” in which Drizzy spit “Linking with the opps, b*tch I did that shit for J. Prince.” Why Drake would spit that particular line or unnecessarily sample Kim Kardashian is anyone’s guess at this point.
Has Kanye still been talking sideways about Drake on the low and it got back to Drizzy? Maybe Drake took Kanye’s antisemitic outbursts to heart and wants some retribution. We don’t know, but it seems like Drake still wants the smoke with the lone MAGA rapper in the Hip-Hop game and we’re curious to see if Kanye returns with some kind of subliminal of his own.
Whatever the case may be it feels like the Drake and Kanye beef isn’t over, and we’re wondering if Ye (or maybe Pusha T) will respond to the King of The North sampling Yeezus’ former queen for his track.
What do y’all think is at play here? Is Drake baiting Kanye West or did he just sample Kim Kardashian for sampling sake? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Kanye West aka Ye has been playing it rather low-key lately, mostly due to his going full anti-Semite in 2022, fumbling bags shortly thereafter and other such tomfoolery. But apparently, the Chicago native says he “likes Jewish people again” and it’s all due to the acting chops of actor Jonah Hill.
This story is as ridiculous as the headline, if we’re keeping it a buck.
Apparently—and we know this because he said so on Instagram—Ye was watching 21 Jump Street starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum when he has a come to Jesus moment (there’s pun there, and it was not intended).
“Watching Jonah Hill in 21 jump street made me like Jewish people again,” said Ye on Instagram for the caption of a pic of the 21 Jump Street movie artwork. “No one should take anger against one or two individuals and transform that into hatred towards millions of innocent people.”
Kim Kardashian’s ex-husband also added, “No Christian can be labeled antisemite knowing Jesus is Jew. Thank you Jonah Hill. I love you.”
Only time will tell how sincere Ye is, or if he’s just trolling. Remember this the guy who went on essentially an anti-semitic campaign via interviews with Alex Jones and Piers Morgan, among others.
Know word on what Jonah Hill thinks of the shout out, yet.
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Looks like Kanye West is leaving his own Sunday Service congregation behind and taking in the gospel of a pastor other than himself.
According to Page Six, Yeezus decided to attend a service at a church in Los Angeles with his wife Bianca Censori and daughter North West this past Saturday. He rolled up to the service with two of the most important ladies in his life and another female passenger. Ye may be looking to have North become more of a God fearing woman in the wake of the whole Ice Spice TikTok debacle that went down a few weeks back.
Not looking to upstage the pastor with his celebrity, Kanye and company kept it casual as church goers. He kept things as lowkey as possible for being one of the most recognizable men on earth.
From Page Six:
The father of four kept it casual in a white tee, a black leather jacket, black pants and black sneakers.
Australia born Censori, 28, cut a similar figure in a cropped black tee and black leggings, which she accessorized with black gloves, a black jacket, and Nike trainers.
The architectural designer’s platinum blonde tresses were slicked back, and she completed the look with several hoop earrings.
North, 9, stayed on theme in a black graphic tee with matching shorts, black socks, white Yeezy shoes, and her hair styled in long, green braids.
Well, at least it seems like Kanye is trying to be as positive a father figure in his kid’s life as possible. The church move comes after Kanye, Bianca and North were spotted having a blast at Universal Studios Hollywood earlier this month. So the man is obviously making an effort these days. Can’t be mad at that. Kim Kardashian might be, but that’s neither here nor there.
What do y’all think of Kanye West spending so much time with his new wife and daughter as of late? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Ye aka Kanye West hasn’t been having the best run of luck since brands started dropping him after the Hip Hop legend and “white lives matter” advocate started going full Nazi whisperer for the world to see. But the man who has at least 99 problems can breathe easy knowing a battery charge ain’t one.
As previously reported, Ye was in Los Angeles in January when he was caught on video snatching a woman’s phone and tossing it to keep her from filming him. According to L.A. law enforcement, Yeezus was facing a battery charge behind the incident, but it looks like Ye is in the clear as the alleged victim has declined to press charges.
From TMZ:
A release from the Ventura Co. District Attorney’s Office Wednesday revealed the phone suffered minor damage — only affecting the $30 case around the device — and stated the female paparazzo declined to press charges against Kanye.
It was back in January when West was filmed taking and tossing the phone into the street close to a facility where his daughter, North, was playing basketball. Kanye had asked the paps in the video not to film him while he was trying to spend time with his kids.
As we reported, it was only a few weeks after the phone incident when Kanye was seen outside the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Department … proceeding inside to ask deputies to take care of the paparazzi following him. The photogs were not causing harm.
I suppose even an attention-addicted egomaniac like Ye should be allowed to protect his children from media vultures. I mean, it’s not like his kids are MAGA hat-bearing Nazi sympathizers after all.
Still, hopefully, Ye will think twice before he puts himself in a position to catch a charge again. Not that thinking has really been his strong suit lately.