Today (Feb. 26), Adidas officially announced that it will resume selling Yeezy products. The footwear giant revealed that the 350 V2 will be the first silhouette to get a global launch in the colorway “Steel Grey.”
Kanye West, who created Yeezy and has collaborated with several companies on the venture, spoke out about the news on Instagram. There, he urged fans not to purchase anything from Adidas and compared the incident to rape.
The caption read, “Anybody who loves Ye would not buy these fake Yeezys. I never made these colorways, I’m not getting paid off of them, and Adidas is suing me. All these celebrities and the public will stand against a T-shirt or the color of my hat, but when y’all see me have my children hidden from me or see an actual Fortune 500 company rape one of your heroes in real life, don’t nobody say nothing or do nothing.”
West continued, “As far as the system goes, what y’all gon’ do now? Take my album down again? Freeze my accounts again? Threaten people to not work with me again? All the new non-approved 350s are [corny], and everybody [knows] the 350 [has always] been corny.”
In October 2022, Adidas terminated its partnership with West after he made a series of anti-Semitic comments. They issued a statement that read, “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.”
Per AP News, Adidas saw a $655 million dip in sales in the final quarter of that year. Overall, the footwear label reported a net loss of roughly $551 million for 2022.
Earlier today, West continued calling out Adidas in an Instagram video uploaded to his account. He stated, “Not only are they putting out fake colorways that are non-approved, [but] they suing me for $250 million, and they’re also not paying me for these shoes that they’re putting out that have my name on it. They’re using contract clauses and 50 years of ‘This is experience’ to rape an artist. One of y’all favorite artists, right in front of y’all, in broad daylight.”