BY: Denver Sean
Published 2 years ago
In a new report by Rolling Stone, it appears former Yeezy and Adidas staffers who used to work for Kanye West have come forward to detail Kanye’s uncontrollable and offensive office behavior.
According to the report, Kanye used intimidation tactics that were provocative, sexual in nature, and often directed toward women — among other things.
He even reportedly resorted to showing staffers porn and intimate photos of his then-wife, Kim Kardashian.
via Rolling Stone:
In the month since Adidas severed ties with West amid a hail of hate speech, more than two dozen former Yeezy and Adidas staffers have described to Rolling Stone an abusive office culturethat left many of them fearing for their livelihoods. Behind the scenes, thiscelebrity boss did more than testthe boundaries of professionalism: Former Yeezy and Adidas staffers and creative collaborators claim that he played pornography to Yeezy staff in meetings; discussed porn and showed an intimate photograph of Kim Kardashian in job interviews; and showed an explicit video and photos of Kardashian as well as his own sex tapes to Yeezy team members.
Now, a revelatory open letter by prominent former members of the Yeezy team insists that leaders from Adidas were aware of West’s “problematic behavior” but “turned their moral compass off,” raising questions about whether his corporate partner could have stepped in years ago.
“There was no accountability,” says a person at the Qinyuan meeting. “Difficult moments happened, with executives in the room — VP level or higher — and nothing would be done. You’d still show up to work the next day.”
On Tuesday night,several former high-ranking employees for Yeezy sent the scathing letter to the executive board members and newly installed CEO of Adidas, urging them to address “the toxic and chaotic environment that Kanye West created” and “a very sick pattern of predacious behavior toward women” who worked under West as part of the Yeezy-Adidas partnership. The letter, a copy of which was obtained exclusively by Rolling Stone, continues: “He has, in years past, exploded at women in the room with offensive remarks, and would resort to sexually disturbing references when providing design feedback. This type of response from a brand partner is one that Adidas employees should never be subjected to, nor should Adidas leadership ever tolerate.”
In response to multiple detailed lists of questions from Rolling Stone, a spokesperson for Adidas provided a brief statement saying, in part, that the company “will not discuss private conversations, details, or events that lead [sic] to our decision to terminate the Adidas Yeezy partnership and decline to comment on any related speculation.” West, who recently stopped working with his publicist and was dropped as a client by his high-profile attorneys, could not be reached for comment through direct messages or intermediaries.
In public, West has referred to a “full-on pornography addiction” that “destroyed my family” and to sex as a design inspiration. Privately, multiple former Yeezy and Adidas staffers regret accepting what they agreed was an unwritten rule from Adidas management — “Kanye is just Kanye” — and underestimating what they once viewed as relatively harmless comments. But the writers of the letter — titled “The Truth About Yeezy: A Call to Action for Adidas Leadership” — accuse the company of lacking “responsibility, accountability, and protection that Adidas failed to provide their employees throughout what we experienced as years of verbal abuse, vulgar tirades, and bullying attacks.”
WEST TRANSPLANTED YEEZY from Nike to Adidas in late 2013. A few months later, he invited a rising creative, whom he’d only met once over the phone, to his Tulum, Mexico-inspired home in the Hollywood Hills. The creative was excited about a potential collaboration and recalls West, within minutes of stepping into the living room, beckoning them to check out his laptop.
Instead of anything resembling work, however, the collaborator claims West had hardcore pornography on the screen. “He showed me the video of Francesca Le, a buff porn star with a strap-on dildo fucking another girl in the ass,” the former collaborator tells Rolling Stone. “He’s like, ‘What do you think of it?’ Not laughing at all.”Two other creatives, including one associated with Yeezy’s early years, claim West had also shown them pornographic videos — including homemade sex tapes of West engaging in sexual activities with women.
Not to defend Kanye, but if Adidas knew about all this and didn’t care while they were in partnership — why care now? They enabled Kanye’s poor behavior because he made them money — and they should take blame as well.
You can read the full story here.
