Adidas announced Thursday it would investigate allegations of inappropriate conduct by rapper and designer Kanye West after the German clothing and sporting goods company ended its partnership with him last month.
The company said it began looking into such claims after an anonymous letter claimed some employees were “intimidated and felt bullied” by the rapper, who now goes by Ye, allegedly forcing some people to watch pornography.
“It is currently not clear whether the accusations made in an anonymous letter are true,” a spokesperson for the company noted in a media statement. “However, we take these allegations very seriously and have taken the decision to launch an independent investigation of the matter immediately to address the allegations.”
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Such allegations were first detailed by Rolling Stone, which reported former employees of the Yeezy-Adidas team sent the anonymous letter to company officials in which they claimed senior leaders were aware of Ye’s conduct but had turned a “blind eye” and “turned their moral compass off.”
Union Investment, Germany’s third-largest asset manager, reportedly wrote to Adidas asking for more information about the claims, according to the Financial Times.
“Adidas needs to disclose when the management and the supervisory board was first informed about the internal allegations,” Janne Werning, head of ESG Capital Markets & Stewardship at Union Investment, told the outlet.
In October, Ye’s YouTube channel uploaded a 30-minute video titled “LAST WEEK” that depicts a recorded meeting between the musician and two Adidas executives. Ye can be seen showing a video on his phone to the executives, with one of them asking if the video was a “porn movie.”
“You guys have done wrong by the company, by the business, and by the partnership,” Ye told the men in the room, appearing to show them a pornographic film on his phone. “The whole concept of this video is that the guy had cheated, so then the girl was like, ‘Well then I’m going to do the thing that’s your worst nightmare,'” Ye said.
The Washington Examiner was not able to reach Ye for comment.
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West has stirred controversy in recent weeks by publicly terminating major corporate collaborations and making antisemitic outbursts on social media and in interviews.
Several of his social media accounts were restricted, although his suspension on Twitter appeared to be lifted this week. His most recent post claims he met with former President Donald Trump at his Florida hotel and club, Mar-a-Lago, this week.
