Luxury fashion brand Balenciaga says it has formally ended its business partnership with artist and fashion designer Kanye West after he made a series of disparaging comments about Jewish people and George Floyd.
“Balenciaga has no longer any relationship nor any plans for future projects related to this artist” the company said about West, who now goes by the name Ye, to WWD on Friday morning.
Ye has designed numerous products for Balenciaga over the years, and he has been a major part of many of the brand’s fashion shows. He even opened Balenciaga’s Spring-Summer 2023 runway show at Paris Fashion Week earlier this month.
Balenciaga has already removed a portion of its website dedicated to selling items from Ye, according to the WWD report, and the brand has also removed some of his items from its online store.
““Balenciaga has no longer any relationship nor any plans for future projects related to this artist.””
In September, Ye announced he intended to terminate his business relationship with Gap Inc. GPS, +5.66% over the alleged failure to meet obligations from the retailer. Sports retailer Adidas has also placed its business relationship with Ye “under review.” And the Anti-Defamation League has also called on Adidas — which paid Ye an estimated $220 million last year in royalties from the sale of Yeezy sneakers, according to Forbes — to drop the artist.
Ye recently tweeted that he was going to go “death con 3 on Jewish people,” leading to a temporary ban of his Twitter TWTR, -4.86% account. And in the wake of that ban, Ye announced he will buy Twitter competitor Parler, an alternative social media company popular among conservatives.
The announcement from Balenciaga comes a few days after entertainment industry super-agent Ari Emanuel asked companies like Apple and Spotify that have ties with Ye to stop doing business with him over his controversial remarks.
“Silence is dangerous,” Emanuel said. “Those who continue to do business with West are giving his misguided hate an audience. There should be no tolerance anywhere for West’s anti-Semitism.”
Read more: Apple, Adidas and Spotify should ‘stop working’ with Kanye West, says super-agent Ari Emanuel
Additionally, in a recent episode of the Drink Champs podcast, Ye also made false claims surrounding the death of George Floyd. Ye said that Floyd died from fentanyl use, despite the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office ruling Floyd’s death a homicide after former police officer Derek Chauvin held his knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Chauvin was sentenced to 22½ years in prison for Floyd’s murder.
Floyd’s family later announced a $250 million lawsuit against Ye for his “flagrant” remarks.
