Ye, the musician and fashion designer formerly known as Kanye West, showed up unannounced at the Skechers corporate office in Los Angeles on Wednesday, prompting executives at the footwear company to escort him out of the building.
“Skechers is not considering and has no intention of working with West,” the company said in a news release. “We condemn his recent divisive remarks and do not tolerate antisemitism or any other form of hate speech.”
Kanye West at an NBA basketball game between the Washington Wizards and the Los Angeles Lakers in Los Angeles, on March 11, 2022. Ashley Landis/Associated Press, file
The incident comes one day after Adidas announced it ended its multibillion-dollar partnership with Ye following his continual, brazen antisemitic comments. For weeks, the artist has unleashed diatribes on social media and in podcasts and TV interviews.
According to Skechers, Ye and others arrived “unannounced and without invitation” and had a “brief conversation” with executives before they were ushered out of the building because they were “engaged in unauthorized filming.”
Ye’s surprise visit could signal that he may be looking for a new home for his Yeezy footwear brand.
The backlash to the artist’s antisemitic and offensive comments have cost him almost his entire empire. In the weeks before Ye lost the Adidas deal, which Forbes estimates at $1.5 billion by itself, several companies – including French fashion house Balenciaga, JPMorgan Chase, talent agency CAA, and Hollywood financier and producer MRC – ended relationships with the performer. This week, Gap and other companies announced they would no longer carry Ye’s products.
The artist, who was often described as a creative genius before his latest erratic behavior, has been essentially ostracized from major cultural touchstones. Last week, a spokesman for Vogue told Page Six that the magazine and editor in chief Anna Wintour would no longer work with him. The magazine has a history of working closely with the artist, putting him and Kim Kardashian on the cover when they got married and including his line with Balenciaga in its pages.
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