A controversial article from the New York Times confirms that the German brand had been putting up with Kanye West’s antisemitic views for a full decade. This means they knew about Kanye’s hateful behavior towards the Jewish community at least since 2013 and they did nothing to stop him. During that period of time, West’s Yeezy brand became the most profitable in the world of sneakers, only behind Jordan Brand. So many billions of dollars later, Kanye West’s public meltdowns and hateful speech became impossible to prevent and the brand had no choice but to cut ties with him. But this article from the Times proves they were complicit in his behavior throughout all these years.

Kanye West sketched a swastika on one of his shoes

According to the New York Times, Kanye West didn’t like the designs of some shoes when he had just been hired by Adidas. They claim that the rapper sketched a swastika on the toe of a shoe he didn’t like. Anther incident took place in 2015, when Kanye West was accused by staff members of making abusive and sexually crude comments. But given that the Yeezy brand started making upwards of $1 billion in sales per year, the Adidas leadership decided to look the other way for years. In 2016, Kanye signed a new contract that put $15 million in his pocket upfront for just signing. Also, he got several million dollars in stocks for every year after that.

Out of the many antics from Kanye West, Adidas decided to ignore his support for Donald Trump and also looked the other way when he offered TMZ that infamous interview. Despite all the backlash for saying slavery was a choice, Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted defended Kanye on CNBC by telling them he has helped the brand have a great comeback in the United States. Today, all of that hype and money is gone because Adidas couldn’t keep West’s behavior under wraps anymore. Adidas always maintained they never signed up for Kanye’s statements but they did sign up for theproducts he kept producing. As of right now, the German sportswear brand hasn’t responded to the article from the New York Times.