Rapper and fashion entrepreneur Kanye West, now legally known as Ye, recently lost his partnership with Adidas.

“I can say antisemitic s—- and Adidas cannot drop me,” Ye said in an article on Forbes.com, challenging Adidas.

Before the situation was brought to light, Ye had been verbalizing and tweeting antisemitic remarks for a week, including a national media appearance. Ye had been working with Adidas for the Yeezy line since 2013 accounting for $1.5 billion of his net worth. Yeezy is a popular, well-selling, expensive shoe line that gives Adidas about 4% to 8% of its sales, according to information from investment bank Cowen.

For a couple of weeks Adidas stayed silent about the topic, only stating on Oct. 6 that their partnership with Ye was “under review.” Later in the month, on Oct. 25, Adidas announced that they are ending their partnership with Ye.

“Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech,” Adidas company said in a press release. “Ye’s recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company’s values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness. After a thorough review, the company has taken the decision to terminate the partnership with Ye immediately, end production of Yeezy branded products and stop all payments to Ye and his companies. Adidas will stop the Adidas Yeezy business with immediate effect.”

This move cost Adidas big, but also put Ye out of the billionaire ranks. Ye is now worth around $400 million, according to newly-released information by Fortune.
Due to him losing his partnership and now out of the billionaire ranks, Ye is unhappy. In the past he has made comments about how his net worth is undervalued. He got angry with magazines back in 2020 for what he said was “undervaluing” his net worth.

“It’s not a billion,” Ye wrote in an angry text message to Forbes according to editor Zack O’Malley. “It’s $3.3 billion since no one at Forbes knows how to count.”