After dropping Ye (FKA Kanye West) due to multiple controversies, including wearing a White Lives Matter shirt and making antisemitic comments, adidas was embroiled in multiple lawsuits with the artist. However, according to Reuters, adidas has settled its lawsuits with Ye in an out-of-court settlement.
Bjorn Gulden, the current CEO of adidas, who joined the company after they already dropped Ye and has navigated the brand through this tumultuous period, told reporters, "There isn't any more open issues, and there is no... money going either way, and we both move on. 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.”
Earlier this year, Ye took to his Instagram to claim that adidas was suing him for $250 million just after The Three Stripes announced a new batch of Yeezy drops. These semi-annual release events have occurred multiple times since the Yeezy partnership ended in 2022, generating hundreds of millions of dollars for adidas. The most recent drop took place back in June and continued throughout the summer.
Ye also claimed that adidas had frozen his bank accounts, with one such claim turning out to be true. Billboard reported in May of this year that adidas had secretly filed a legal action on November 11, 2022, that froze $75 million in accounts held by Ye. Shortly after this report, the judge lifted the court order because adidas did not take the correct actions in its filings. Still, the dispute went into private arbitration shortly thereafter.
Adidas initially struggled to decide on how to approach its $1 billion-plus inventory of Yeezy sneakers but ultimately decided to sell products to the public in batches. Portions of the proceeds were donated to organizations that fight hate speech and antisemitism. However, recent releases of Yeezys have seen adidas discount products up to 70% off the initial retail price.
Kanye claims he sold 266k pairs of Yeezy Pod Sock Shoes yesterday...😳
After going on his own, Ye sold clothes and the infamous Yeezy Pods, a sock with a rubber sole attached, for $20 on his website. The Pods were initially priced at $200, but in a Super Bowl advertisement, he announced that all prices on his site would go down to $20, including the socks. Ye later shared screenshots and numbers suggesting he sold around $5 million worth of Yeezy Pods.
With the legal bindings between Ye and adidas severed and less than €150 Million in Yeezy inventory remaining, it’s looking like the era of adidas Yeezy sneakers is drawing to a close.
While adidas retains the legal rights to the designs sans Yeezy branding, CEO Bjorn Gulden has made it clear that the brand has no plans to use these designs moving forward. As the remaining stock of Yeezys dwindles, the once-iconic partnership is fading into sneaker history, marking the end of an era for one of the most influential collaborations in the footwear industry.
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Sneakerhead from South Florida who turned his passion into a career. Concerts, music, trying new restaurants, and catching the latest movies are some of the things I enjoy when not writing for Sole Retriever. Email: nick@soleretriever.com
