Kanye West settles with Adidas out of court after brand cut ties with rapper over his antisemitic views

Kanye West quietly ended his legal battle with Adidas two years after the brand cut ties with the rapper.

On Tuesday, Adidas CEO Bjørn Gulden revealed they reached an out-of-court agreement, which didn’t include any payments.

“There isn’t any more open issues, and there is no… money going either way, and we both move on,” Gulden told reporters on a conference call, according to multiple outlets.

“There were tensions on many issues, and… when you put the claims on the right side and you put the claims on the left side, both parties said we don’t need to fight anymore and withdrew all the claims.”

However, the businessman didn’t share any additional details about the deal.

“No one owes anybody anything anymore,” he said, per Bloomberg. “So whatever was is history.”

The German company ended their partnership with West, 47, after he wore a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt and went on an antisemitic tirade in October 2022.

“Adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech,” the athletic company said in a statement at the time.

“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.”

Before going their separate ways, West’s Yeezy line reportedly accounted for nearly half of the company’s profits.

After dropping Ye, the brand was left with around $1.3 billion of unsold Yeezy shoes and merchandise, which they have slowly been trying to sell off.

Gulden later vowed to donate all profits from the remaining Yeezy sales “to the organizations that help us and were harmed by what Ye said.”

Meanwhile, West’s partnership with Adidas accounted for $1.5 billion of his net worth, but once things fell through, his billionaire status was stripped.

Since then, both sides have levied a series of lawsuits against each other, which has largely been dealt with through private arbitration.

In February 2024, West claimed the retailer was suing him for upwards of $250 million, which has seemingly been resolved.

Although West and Adidas didn’t sever ties until 2022, there had allegedly been misconduct behind the scenes for years.

According to an October 2023 report published by the New York Times, West allegedly drew a swastika during his very first meeting with the German retailer in 2013.

Several of his former employees claimed West became so frustrated with the team’s ideas that “he grabbed a sketch of a shoe and took a marker to the toe” and drew the hateful image to “convey how offensive he considered the designs.”

However, his alleged offensive behavior went unchecked for years. West allegedly described Adolf Hitler as a “master marketer” and told colleagues he really “admired” his “command of propaganda.”

He also allegedly “advised a Jewish Adidas manager to kiss a picture of Hitler every day.”

West’s alleged problematic conduct went on for nearly a decade before the brand finally invoked the morals clause in his contract.