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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Entertainment
Dominique Hines

Balenciaga splits with Kanye West after rapper made antisemitic outburst

Kanye West has been ditched by luxury fashion brand Balenciaga

(Picture: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Luxury fashion house Balenciaga has cut ties with Kanye West following his recent spate of controversial comments.

Balenciaga’s parent company Kering confirmed that the brand would no longer be working with the rapper turned fashion mogul.

"Balenciaga has no longer any relationship nor any plans for future projects related to this artist," a representative for Kering said on Thursday.

The Yeezy fashion mogul, who has legally changed his name to Ye, had joined forces with Balenciaga’s creative director Demna Gvasalia earlier this year to release the Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga clothing line.

He also opened the brand’s Paris Fashion Week show earlier this month.

West (pictured) has seen a fallout and huge backlash from various brands and fans since he wore a White Lives Matter shirt in early October (Candace Owens/Twitter)

An image of the 45-year-old star walking the runway at the show has been removed from their website.

On Thursday, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) wrote an open letter to Adidas bosses asking them to discontinue releasing products from Ye’s Yeezy footwear line.

They called on the sports retail giant to not give the star’s "antisemitism a pass" and show that there are consequences for his "hateful" comments.

"We urge Adidas to reconsider supporting the Ye product line and to issue a statement making clear that the Adidas company and community has no tolerance whatsoever for antisemitism," the letter reads.

West opened the show at the Balenciaga Womenswear Spring/Summer 2023 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on October 02, 2022 in Villepinte, France (Getty Images For Balenciaga)

The German retailer announced on October, 6, prior to the star’s antisemitic comments, that its partnership with his Yeezy brand was "under review".

They’ve made no further comment.

In an unprecedented move, JP Morgan has also given Ye a deadline to remove his millions from their bank by the end of November.

Social media accounts were restricted earlier this month after the father-of-four wrote a now deleted tweet that he was going to go “defcon 3” on Jewish people and alleged that he wasn’t “anti Semitic because black people are actually Jews.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has appealed to Adidas to discontinue releasing products from Ye’s Yeezy footwear line (Jonathan Leibson/Getty Images for ADIDAS)

While on Instagram he accused record producer Sean “Diddy” Combs of being controlled by the religious minority.

He has continued to spread his controversial opinions and double down on them in a series of follow-up interviews.

This include falsely stating that George Floyd died from “fentanyl” and that former police officer Derek Chauvin’s knee “wasn’t even on [Floyd’s] neck like that”.

Last year, medical experts proved Floyd died from a lack of oxygen, not from the trace amount of fentanyl in his system. West is now being sued for his false comments for $250 million by Floyd’s family.

The comments came after West sparked controversy after appearing at his own Yeezy fashion show at Paris Fashion Week wearing a T-shirt that read “White Lives Matter”.

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