According to NME, Adidas allegedly created a ‘Yzy hotline’ to manage Kanye West in an “ongoing effort to help Mr. West, contain him, or somehow do both.” After a series of allegedly antisemitic remarks made by the rapper, Adidas eventually dropped West from their Yeezy collaboration back in 2022. Potentially foreseeing a decline in West’s public stature, a group of employees allegedly crafted a text message chain to settle issues in their collaboration beginning in 2018.
One manager wrote that the musician, “doesn’t understand how his money works and he only trusts adidas.” Additional messages unveil employees’ concern that West was, “shifting, outsize expectations and his vehemence in their private dealings.”
The New York Times mentioned that a company spokeswoman and former CEO Kasper Rorsted have declined to answer questions regarding the message chain. The source also states, “its publicly released annual reports reflect no discussion of problems in the Yeezy partnership until 2022.” Shockingly, the alleged ‘Yzy hotline’ report reveals that West’s antisemitic behavior dates all the way back to 2013.
CEO Bjorn Gulden confessed that the musician’s declining reputation was hindering the success of the sportswear company, specifically in North America where the brand experienced a 20 percent loss in sales.
Gulden appeared in a podcast interview with In Good Company where he shared, “I think Kanye West is one of the most creative people in the world, both in music and what I would call street culture. He’s extremely creative, I don’t think he meant what he said. I don’t think he’s a bad person, it just came across that way.”
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