Ye has burned another bridge.
French fashion house Balenciaga, which collaborated with the artist f.k.a. Kanye West and Gap on the now defunct Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga collection and is owned by luxury conglomerate Kering, has severed all ties with him reports WWD in an exclusive story.
“Balenciaga has no longer any relationship nor any plans for future projects related to this artist,” Kering told the outlet, which is owned by Penske Media Corporation, the parent company of Rivet.
The label has also removed the image of Ye opening its Paris Fashion week show on Oct. 2 from its website. He held his brand’s own YZY fashion show later in the week which ignited a firestorm of controversy with its “White Lives Matter” slogan tees, which took their words from a phrase used by white supremacists to counter the Black Lives Matter movement. Since then Ye, who has bipolar disorder, has been on what can only be described as a rampage defending his stance and beliefs—and stoking the fire by making antisemitic remarks—on social and traditional media including interviews with polarizing personalities Tucker Carlson, Chris Cuomo and Piers Morgan.
Having been suspended from Twitter and Instagram, he then said he was buying the right-wing social media platform Parler.
The divorce is the latest of several involving the controversial rapper and fashion designer. Last month he announced that he was ending his $970 million contract with Gap eight years prematurely because he believed that the retailer did not live up to its terms. Adidas, which has a contract with him through 2026, is currently reviewing the six-year relationship after he berated the company on Instagram. The sportwear giant said it made “repeated efforts to privately resolve the situation” but that it would “continue to co-manage the current product” from Ye’s Yeezy brand.
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On Thursday the Anti-Defamation League sent a letter to Adidas CEO Kaspar Rorsted and chairman of the board Thomas Rabe urging the German company to sever ties with Ye as well. “In light of Kanye West’s increasingly strident antisemitic remarks over the past few weeks, we were disturbed to learn that Adidas plans to continue to release new products from his Yeezy brand without any seeming acknowledgement of the controversy surrounding his most recent remarks,” it said.
“Two weeks ago, after he wore a White Lives Matter shirt, Adidas said he was under review. At this point, what more do you need to review? We were particularly alarmed to see that the Adidas brand intends to release new products in the Yeezy line, including the Yeezy Boost 350, in the run-up to the anniversary of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre on Oct. 27—the most violent antisemitic attack in U.S. history,” it continued.
“We urge Adidas to reconsider supporting the Ye product line and to issue a statement making clear that the Adidas company and community has no tolerance whatsoever for antisemitism,” it added.
Earlier this month a video was uploaded to YouTube which showed Ye and two associates at a meeting with Adidas executives in which he showed them a porn film on his smartphone in an effort to compare its plot to his relationship with the company. “You guys have done wrong by the company, by the business and by the partnership,” he says in it. “The whole concept of this video is that the guy had cheated, so then the girl was like, ‘Well, then I’m going to do the thing that’s your worst nightmare.”