Former employees who worked with Ye’s Fashion brand Yeezy is accusing the rapper of “problematic” workplace behavior that partner company Adidas allowed to take place, including sharing explicit photos of Kim Kardashian and displaying pornography to workers, according to a new report.
In a letter to Adidas executives shared by Rolling Stone, former Yeezy and Adidas employees say Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, created an abusive work culture and used his inappropriate behavior as a form of “intimidation.” Instead of stepping in, Adidas management shut down its “moral compass,” former employees say, according to Rolling Stone. The magazine’s Tuesday report, along with an earlier story, is based on interviews with more than two dozen former Adidas and Yeezy employees.
Such allegations include Ye making pornography to Yeezy staff during meetings, showing employees intimate photos of his then-wife Kim Kardashian, and playing his own sex tapes to team members.
Titled “The Truth About Yeezy: A Call to Action for Adidas Leadership,” the letter calls on Adidas’ board members and CEO to address the “toxic and chaotic environment that Kanye West has created” as well as “a very sick model of predators. “behavior towards women” who worked with Ye.
“Troublesome times happened, with executives in the room — at the VP level or above — and nothing was done. You will still come to work the next day,” the letter said. The report and letter come a month after Adidas cut ties with Ye in his anti-Semitic remarks.
Publicists listed as representing Ye did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment. Even Rolling Stone was unable to reach Ye, who has been sidelined by multiple representatives and lawyers who might otherwise have spoken on his behalf.
In a statement to HuffPost, an Adidas spokesperson declined to address the new allegations, saying: “We will not discuss private conversations, details or events that [led] our decision to end our partnership with adidas Yeezy.”
“We have been and continue to be actively engaged in conversations with our employees about the events that led to our decision to end the partnership,” the spokesperson said. “They have our full support.”
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Kardashian did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment, nor did a spokesperson for Rolling Stone.
A young creative told Rolling Stone that Ye showed her an explicit picture of Kardashian on her phone during a job interview in 2018 and told her, “My wife just sent me this.” At least one other former employee recalled Ye showing an erotic video of Kardashian — who filed for divorce from the rapper in 2021 — to the Yeezy creative team that same year.
The ex-employee told the magazine that playing pornographic videos while dating was a regular occurrence, and that Ye even made them watch his homemade videos of him engaging in sexual activities with women. Ye himself shared a documentary in October in which he was seen presenting pornography to Adidas executives.
A former employee told Rolling Stone that Ye’s oversexualization extended to how he would ask them to design his products, and that Ye once expressed a desire for them to make a sneaker where he could ejaculate.
“It’s not a sneaker with sex toys, but something you liked so much that you want to have an intimate relationship,” employee Ye recalled. “He’d be, like, ‘Shit.’ It would be very clear what this means”.
you recognized Three years ago when I got into a porn addiction “out in the open” during an interview on “The Zane Lowe Show” podcast.
Read Rolling Stone’s full report here.
