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After the loss of his partnership with Adidas due to his recent tirades, Ye aka Kanye West has now officially lost his billionaire status.
According to a report, the superstar rapper is no longer considered a billionaire after the global athletic brand announced the end of its partnership on Tuesday (Oct. 25). The German-based company had been silent in the past weeks while under intense public pressure to drop the artist over antisemitic remarks he made initially on social media, only saying that their deal was “under review” until their statement. That partnership compromised $1.5 billion in net worth for West; the ending of it places his current net worth at $400 million. The severing of ties is the latest to befall the rapper in recent days.
A closer inspection of the deal showed that Ye’s earnings from the partnership were akin to residuals from motion pictures or royalties from music catalogs, with their own distinct monetary value that could be sold off according to industry experts. The “Father Stretch My Hands” rapper’s current net worth is now based on his own music catalog, cash, real estate, and a stake of 5% in Skims, the shape-wear company owned by his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian.
The immediate financial hit can be seen by some as a consequence of Ye’s own boasting. During his appearance on the Drink Champs podcast with N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN, when asked if he was concerned about adidas taking action, he scoffed:
“The thing about it being adidas is, like, I can literally say antisemitic s–t and they can’t drop me … I can say antisemitic things and adidas can’t drop me. Now what?” His words on the now-deleted podcast episode combined with the sight of white supremacists dropping a banner over a highway in Los Angeles reading “Kanye was right about the Jews” was too much for adidas, which has its own problematic history rife with ties to the Nazi regime of World War II.
Forbes, who made the initial appraisal, did note that Ye is more than likely to soon challenge the downgrading of his financial status. He had initially found fault with the publication over his net worth valuation when he first made the list of billionaires in 2020. “It’s not a billion,” he wrote in a text to the publication at the time. “It’s $3.3 billion since no one at Forbes knows how to count.”
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