Ye, the hip-hop artist and fashion designer formerly known as Kanye West, has reignited his feud with Adidas, his former partner in the Yeezy brand. In a heated Instagram post on January 7, Ye accused Adidas of intentionally undermining his Yeezy brand while also calling out Fear of God designer Jerry Lorenzo for continuing to collaborate with the sportswear giant.
Behind the Battle
The controversy centers around Ye’s belief that Adidas manipulates search engine results to prioritize its website over his brand.
“When you google Yeezy.com the adidas site comes before the Yeezy site Members at adidas Stop doing this Stop doing your moves to hold me back Our partnership is done You’re a 60 billion dollar company that froze my accounts,” Ye wrote alongside a screenshot of his search results. He accused the $60 billion company of trying to “intimidate and oppress” him, despite their partnership ending in 2022 following Ye’s widely condemned anti-Semitic remarks.
After Ye’s comments, the company removed all of Yeezy products from its site.
Adidas officially severed ties with Ye in October 2022. The business breakup has reportedly cost the company $1.3 billion in lost sales and $534 million in operating profit, according to Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden. Yeezy products accounted for approximately 10% of Adidas’ annual revenue.
Ye, who has often accused Adidas of “design theft,” reiterated these claims in his Instagram post, though he did not say which designs were allegedly stolen. He also expressed frustration over past tensions with the company, posting, “Now I’m back on my feet (no pun intended) and I’m not going to stand for this (no pun again) I did phenomenal work for you guys and because I stood up for myself yall tried to intimidate and oppress me everyone remembers I had major issues with adidas because of design theft and oppression before ‘the tweet.”
Ye also took aim at Lorenzo, a former collaborator who partnered with Adidas in 2020 as the creative director of Adidas Basketball. Ye called Lorenzo “corny and disloyal” for continuing to work with Adidas despite the rapper’s public grievances. Ye even accused Lorenzo’s 2023 Hollywood Bowl fashion show of copying a show he had previously held at the same venue.
