Executives At Nike Tried To Warn Adidas About Working With Kanye West Prior To Their Partnership

Even though we don’t hear from him as much as we used to (Thank the Heavens!), the ripples of Kanye West‘s ill-fated partnership with Adidas are still sending waves crashing against his supposed good name. Apparently, prior to his line of expensive apocalyptic zombie wear, Nike tried to warn Adidas about the dangers of partnering with Kanye. Mainly because he’s an unstable self-proclaimed Christian Genius Billionaire who thrives on chaos. And chaos is exactly what Adidas got from Kanye, who took them through different levels of petulant childishness with their partnership as Nike snickered in the background before screaming, “We told you so!”

Insider reports Adidas found out the hard way that working with Kanye is now fun. And their public fallout after Kanye’s continuous downward spiral was all the proof they needed that ignoring Nike’s warning was a costly mistake they could have avoided. They originally partnered with Kanye to provide a line of his normal-looking sneakers beginning in 2009.

Somewhere during their partnership, Ye’s mind began unraveling into “How can I make my shoes UGLIER!” and the designs began to transform into face suckers from the Aliens franchise. Still, his fans (apparently people with way too much money) had no issues purchasing his ugly ass shoes. But while this was happening, discord began taking place between Kanye and Nike, who were butting heads over royalties with the sneaker sales.

Before Adidas partnered with him on its Yeezy range, Ye had already worked with Nike to develop the Air Yeezy range, with the first sneakers hitting shelves in 2009. But their partnership came to an end just four years later when Ye said that Nike had refused to pay him royalties on Yeezy sales because he wasn’t a professional athlete. Nike released its final collaboration sneaker with the rapper in February 2014, and the $245 shoes reportedly sold out in just 11 minutes.

After their collaboration with Kanye and ahead of his partnership with Adidas, Nike tipped on over to whisper “Don’t do it, girl..” into Adidas’ ear, but they didn’t listen. What ensued next was one of the biggest story arcs of Kanye’s downfall, where he reportedly cost Adidas over a billion dollars in losses once their marriage ended in a very bitter divorce (which Kanye’s become accustomed to at this point).

After a string of other companies cut ties with Ye, Adidas finally followed suit on October 25, leaving the company with a mountain of unsold Yeezy stock worth around 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) and a huge black hole in its sales.

Adidas has said that it will begin selling some of the remaining Yeezy inventory in late May, with a “significant amount” donated to organizations working to combat discrimination and hate.

Meanwhile, as Adidas continues licking its wounds in the aftermath of its partnership with Kanye, he’s out in the world with his Kim Klone Kompanion looking ridiculous as ever with a new wardrobe. And by “wardrobe,” I do in fact mean some weird shit that’s supposed to be fashion, I guess. Page Six reports Kanye and his “wife” Bianca Censori recently hit the streets looking like rejected Mortal Kombat characters in an attempt to remind us they’re still a thing. And honestly, they should have both just stayed in the house because we had already happily forgotten them both.

Kanye West wore a T-shirt with massive shoulder pads paired with flared capris and soleless shoes during an ice cream date with his former employee and now “wife,” Bianca Censori.

The anti-Semitic rapper stepped out in the black T-shirt that read “Polizei” on the front, the German word for “police.”

The “Gold Digger” singer paired the T-shirt with black cropped sweatpants and minimalist cobalt blue soleless sock shoes.

Why Kanye wearing Tom Brady shoulder pads? pic.twitter.com/WaVuc2iW9s

— 𝐊𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭🗡️ (@YungKnight) May 25, 2023

I’m not sure what in the Alexis Carrington Colby on bootleg steroids hell is going on with this t-shirt, but it needs to stop. And hopefully, people will stop taking fashion advice from a man who looks like a Dollar Store action figure. We all need to heed both Nike and Adidas’ warnings from now on.

Pic: Backgrid