Adidas has been sued by investors over its Yeezy partnership with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, alleging the sportswear giant “routinely ignored extreme behavior” for years.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Oregon, alleges that senior executives at the German sportswear giant were aware of the risks of working with Ye “as early as 2018,” Bloomberg reported.
Adidas dumped Ye in October after his string of antisemitic remarks. The move battered the company’s earnings and stuck it with unsold products from the rapper’s Yeezy shoe line.
The lawsuit alleges that Adidas considered ending the partnership years earlier, but a 2018 report to shareholders only “generally” alluded to the risks of doing business with Ye. The company began working with Ye in 2015 and in 2018 he made controversial remarks referring to slavery as a “choice.”
The lawsuit also alleges that the company didn’t disclose that Ye made antisemitic remarks to Adidas staffers. It names Kasper Rorsted, former CEO of Adidas, along with Chief Financial Officer Harm Ohlmeyer. The rapper isn’t named as a defendant.
“We outright reject these unfounded claims and will take all necessary measures to vigorously defend ourselves against them,” an Adidas spokesperson said in a statement to USA Today.
Ye is reportedly preparing for a comeback in the fashion world. The rapper, whose last clothing drop included a controversial white lives matter T-shirt, put out a casting call for a fashion show over the weekend inviting “beings with shaved heads” to a location in Los Angeles, Highsnobiety reported.