Adidas is launching an investigation into Yes’s alleged inappropriate behavior at Yeezy
Adidas has opened an investigation into allegations that it ignored inappropriate behavior by Ye when he ran Yeezy and made shoes for the German sporting goods giant.
The examination is carried out according to a Rolling Stone report detailed incidents of inappropriate and often sexualized treatment of employees by the rapper and fashion designer formerly known as Kanye West. The report, which cited more than two dozen former Yeezy and Adidas employees, said Adidas was made aware of Ye’s “problematic behavior” but ignored the allegations and “turned off their moral compass.”
Adidas has already dropped Kanye West after his mid-November tirade of anti-Semitic and racist remarks that wiped out Yeezy’s entire valuation and slashed $1.5 billion from Ye’s net worth. The acrimonious split between Adidas and Yeezy also left its mark on Adidas’ earnings forecasts, which the company had to cut twice by as much as 250 million euros for the year.
Adidas says it launched the investigation after receiving an anonymous letter saying it was Rolling StoneShe came from several senior employees for Yeezy. In it, the author or authors called on Adidas to address “the toxic and chaotic environment created by Kanye West” and “a very sick pattern of predatory behavior toward women.”
“This type of response from a brand partner is one that Adidas employees should never be exposed to and Adidas leadership should never tolerate,” the letter said.
In a statement to wealthAdidas said that while it is unclear if the allegations are true, “we take these allegations very seriously and have made the decision to immediately launch an independent investigation into the matter to address the allegations.”
The accusations
In which Rolling Stone A former Yeezy and Adidas employee reportedly claimed that Ye played pornography to Yeezy employees at meetings and showed intimate photos of Kim Kardashian and sex tapes of himself with various women at meetings and job interviews. In the anonymous letter to Adidas, the former employees also said that in the past several years, Ye “exploded insults at women in the room and resorted to sexually disturbing innuendos when providing design feedback.”
While it’s hard to imagine a boss showing porn in a business meeting, Ye himself posted a 30-minute documentary on YouTube in mid-October showing such behavior. In the video entitled Last week, Kanye shows a porn film to two Adidas executives and claims that the voice of one of the porn actors resembles that of one of the executives, who rejects the proposal.
Asset management company Union Investment, which owns a 0.76% stake in Adidas, wrote to the company to request more information on these allegations. “Adidas must disclose when the executive board and supervisory board were first informed of the internal allegations,” Janne Werning, head of ESG Capital Markets and Stewardship at Union Investment, told Reuters.
Pete Fox, who served as Yeezy’s president in 2016, was the only person on record to speak Rolling Stone Article stating, “I’ve never watched porn or anything like that with him, but we did watch things together that might surprise people.”
Fox also defended Ye, saying, “There’s a lot of sexy, controversial things in high fashion that they might relate to or look at, unlike a company like Adidas where you would never show nudity in a mood board. “
Since Adidas dropped Ye, it has replaced its CEO with Bjorn Gulden, the former chief executive of competitor Puma. Gulden is set to take over in January to help the company recover from the Ye controversy and boost sales in China, which have stalled due to consumer boycotts of Western brands.
As for Ye, the fashion designer has had few contacts since the controversy surrounding his anti-Semitic and racist remarks. The talent agencies representing him – Creative Artists Agency and United Talent Agency – his attorneys at Cohen Clair Lans Greifer Thorpe & Rottenstreich, the fashion magazine Fashion, and the production company that produces his documentary, MRC Entertainment, all parted ways with the artist. In addition, brands such as Balenciaga, Gap, Foot Locker and Sketchers condemned Ye and refused to work with him.
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