KEY POINTS
- Kanye West shrugged off brands dropping him after his anti-Semitic remarks
- He said the day he was removed from Balenciaga’s site was “one of the most freeing days” for him
- West claimed that people are cutting ties with him just to “score points”
Kanye West is unfazed by companies dropping him after he made anti-Semitic comments and showed support for the “White Lives Matter” cause.
Following his and ex-wife Kim Kardashian‘s oldest daughter North’s basketball game on Friday night, the rapper addressed the controversy swirling around him, including Balenciaga cutting ties with him.
“I ain’t losing no money,” he told TMZ, shrugging. “The day I was taken off the Balenciaga site, that was one of the most freeing days.”
West claimed that people are cutting ties with him just to “score points,” assuming that they were asked “to not do business with” him because they’re “trying to mute” him.
But though some companies now refuse to work with him, the Yeezy founder insisted that he can’t be canceled.
“We here, baby, we ain’t going nowhere,” West told the outlet.
The “Donda” artist also claimed that the backlash against him only made him continue to support his anti-Semitic comments.
“I want to talk about the Jewish comment. It’s actually proving the exact point that I made,” he said.
West explained that his comments have been an attempt to unite the human race as one.
“It’s going to take all of us to come together. We gotta get the truth before we can get the love. If not, we are just loving the lies,” he said, according to Page Six.
He continued, “They never expected someone to have the platform. It’s not that anyone is afraid, they’re afraid of us not being afraid anymore. They can’t use all the tactics. I’m talking about [how] my life has been threatened for having a political opinion. To wear the wrong color hat or the audacity of me as a Black man to have a White Lives Matter T-shirt. I’ve seen white people wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts. it’s pretty one-sided if you think about it.”
West — who recently hired Johnny Depp’s lawyer Camille Vasquez and the Brown Rudnick firm to oversee his business deals and contracts — also addressed the possibility of Adidas dropping him.
He said he and the company “are going through legal right now so anything can happen.”
Balenciaga announced Friday that it had severed ties with West amid his anti-Semitic comments and continued defense of his “White Lives Matter” T-shirts.
“Balenciaga has no longer any relationship nor any plans for future projects related to this artist,” parent company Kering told Women’s Wear Daily in a statement.
The French fashion house quietly removed all mention of the Grammy winner from its site, including its Yeezy Gap engineered by Balenciaga collaboration with the “Gold Digger” rapper.
Earlier this month, Adidas, which handles the manufacturing of and distribution for West’s billion-dollar Yeezy brand, announced that it has put its partnership with the rapper “under review” after “repeated efforts to privately resolve the situation” with him.
West has accused the company of allegedly copying his ideas and not giving him enough control over the line.
Vogue and its editor-in-chief Anna Wintour also have no intention of working with West again following his recent controversies and after he mocked one of their editors, Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, an unnamed insider recently told Page Six.
