Kanye West has always left a marmite-esque impression on the public. That is to say that most people either despise the man or adore the ground he walks on. Kanye, who recently legally changed his name to the mononym “Ye”, obviously enjoys his divisive nature, and often plays up to the opposition his words cause. Kanye has always been a man of large ego and a bastion of self-importance, and it is not uncommon to hear him describe himself as a ‘genius’, or as ‘the voice of a generation’.
But it appears that West’s use of controversiality to boost his personal brand has finally backfired, and in an explosive way. Since his split with ex wife Kim Kardashian earlier this year, West has taken to harassing her romantic interests online, sharing their private messages, and making threatening remarks. But his media antics have become even more deranged and dangerous than this.
In recent months, Kanye has taken to Twitter, Instagram, and any media outlet that will still interview him, to make wildly ignorant and deeply antisemitic comments about Jewish people. He has also aligned himself with the White Lives Matter movement, often considered a racist and anti-black social movement, and attacked George Floyd, the man whose death at the hands of white police officer Derek Chauvin sparked the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.
Amongst Kanye’s worst comments are his assertion that a “Jewish underground media mafia” is controlling the world’s information, his suggestion that chattal slavery “was a choice”, and his aggressive statement that he was going to “go death con 3 on Jewish people”. He topped it all off most recently in an interview on the Drink Champs podcast in which he claimed “I can say antisemitic things and Adidas can’t drop me.” Oddly enough, West has also claimed he “cannot be antisemitic” because he “classifies as a Jew” both because he considered all Black people as “the original Israelites” and because he claims he is of “the blood of Christ”.
Now, Kanye’s hateful remarks and divisive fomenting of antisemitism have finally caught up with him. In recent weeks virtually all of West’s social media accounts have been suspended due to his bigoted posts. In response to his “Adidas can’t drop me” comment, Adidas have just announced that they are, indeed, going to drop him. The company will take a profit hit of hundreds of millions of dollars in order to end their association with West, in a move that has cost him his billionaire status. That’s right! Overnight the rapper’s net worth has plummeted from over $2 billion to less than $400 million due to losing the Yeezys partnership with Adidas, and from a man who claimed his was millions in debt way back in 2016, this could spell absolute financial disaster for him.
Alongside Adidas, his most prominent and famous brand partnership, Kanye has also been dropped by other major companies like Balenciaga, Gap, JPMorgan Chase, the law firm representing him during his divorce, and his talent agency, the Creative Artists Agency (CAA).
Kanye is now desperately scrambling to maintain his visibility and relevance in a world that relies on platforms and media outlets to retain fame. He recently announced intentions to purchase the far-right social media site Parlor, which would give him his own social platform that nobody could remove him from. Of course, he may struggle to complete this purchase, considering that his wealth is rapidly plummeting, his brands are all jumping ship, and he has a lawsuit to the tune of $250 million to address, filed by the family of George Floyd.
Kanye West’s downfall has certainly been a long time coming, and few celebrities have a history of controversial actions and statements as detailed as his, but few could have predicted how explosively his eventual fall would be. It seems unlikely that his reputation will ever fully recover from this, but with such an erratic, mercurial mindset, it is anybody’s guess what he will try next.