Kanye West attended daughter North West’s basketball game at Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, Calif., on Friday night, and spoke with press after about his partnerships with Adidas and Balenciaga. His comments came the same day that Balenciaga announced it was dropping him.
“I ain’t lose no money. They never paid me nothing,” the rapper said regarding Balenciaga in video footage shared by Hollywood Fix on YouTube. “The day when I was taken off the Balenciaga site, that was one of the most freeing days. We’re about making product that’s $20, the best design in the world, and that’s the reason why we had brought the head designer from Balenciaga, Demna, who’s a great designer. That’s why I brought him to the Gap in the first place, but they didn’t allow that to happen. And that’s why I had to get up out of those big corporations, so I could give directly to the people.”
As for Adidas, Kanye West remained vague on the future of the partnership — though legal discussions are apparently underway.
“We’re going through legal right now, so anything can happen,” he said.
Kanye West’s comments are the latest update in the ongoing saga of his partnerships with both brands.
Early this month, Adidas stated it had put its Yeezy partnership under review, following weeks of comments from the rapper accusing the German athletic brand for copying his designs, not giving him enough control over his products and not opening up Yeezy stores, among other complaints. The statement from Adidas came days after Ye’s controversial Yeezy SZN 9 fashion show, where he wore a black long-sleeved T-shirt with the words “White Lives Matter” emblazoned on the back. Kanye West reportedly wore the “White Lives Matter” T-shirt to the game Friday, but the controversial piece was covered with a paint-splattered hoodie.
Following the controversial Yeezy SZN 9 fashion show, he doubled down on his stance on Instagram despite widespread backlash and took particular heat for his social media bullying of Vogue fashion editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, though he later met with her in Paris.
Aside from Adidas and Balenciaga, the Yeezy brand stated in September that it was terminating its contract with Gap, accusing the apparel brand of failing to fulfill certain contractual obligations, such as distributing Yeezy product in stores by the second half of 2021 and creating Yeezy Gap-branded stores.
Kanye West and North West attend her basketball game at Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, Calif. on Oct. 21, 2022. CREDIT: @CelebCandidly / MEGA
