Kanye West is facing very public reckoning. The “Hurricane” rapper made headlines at his Yeezy Paris Fashion Week show on Oct. 3 for wearing a shirt emblazoned with the phrase “White Lives Matter” on its back, and featuring Black models in the shirt. The phrase is one that was adopted by neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, and the rapper has been facing backlash from both fans and celebrities online.
But the controversy did not stop for there for Ye, who has doubled down on his comments on Instagram and later took to Twitter to use antisemitic rhetoric in his posts, then continued to amplify his hate speech in interviews. The reaction from the public was swift, with several companies — including The Gap, Balenciaga and more — terminating their relationships and brand deals with the rapper.
Forbes has also reported that Ye has lost his billionaire status after Adidas announced Oct. 25 that it was dropping his due deal, and that the brand does not tolerate hate speech. The move, according to the publication, now puts Ye’s net worth at $400 million and resulted in his removal from Forbes‘ billionaires list.
Since then, Adidas has opened an internal investigation after several former employees accused West of inappropriate workplace conduct during meetings with Adidas employees. People in his orbit, from former girlfriend Julia Fox to collaborator Pusha T, have also distanced themselves from him. Furthermore, Ye’s Nov. 22 dinner with Donald Trump and white nationalist Nick Fuentes was widely denounced, even by Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence.
From brands and scrapped documentaries, to airplay declines of his music catalogue and more, here are the consequences Kanye West has faced due to his “WLM” and antisemitic remarks.
*Editor’s Note: After an Oct. 8, 2022, tweet in which he announced he was going “death con [sic] 3 on Jewish people,” Kanye West (Ye) has repeatedly doubled down on antisemitic hate speech, even going so far as to praise Hitler, a man responsible for the systematic murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust. This arrives at a troubling time when antisemitism is on the rise, with the Anti-Defamation League noting a 34% year-over-year increase in antisemitic incidents (assault, harassment and vandalism) in America in 2021. Many companies have cut business ties with the rapper/fashion designer, while numerous musicians, friends and politicians have condemned his comments.
