Kanye West has been dropped by Balenciaga following a number of antisemitic tirades in the last two weeks, it has emerged.
The French fashion house said it would no longer be working on any projects with the US rapper after he tweeted that he would go to "death con 3 on Jewish people", and made a number of other antisemitic comments.
Balenciaga's parent company Kering said in response to an enquiry from WWD: “Balenciaga has no longer any relationship nor any plans for future projects related to this artist."
Only three weeks ago, West opened Balenciaga's summer 2021 show at Paris Fashion Week. The show was held in a mud pit and saw the rapper wearing what appeared to be battle gear. The image no longer appears on the company's website.
Kanye West pictured at the Vanity Fair Oscar party in February 2020 (Photo by Jean-Baptiste Lacroix/AFP via Getty Images)
The show was West's most recent collaboration with Balenciaga was with its artistic director Demna on their 'Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga' line, which launched in February.
West ended his relationship with Gap last month, and the future of his collaboration with Adidas is also unclear after the sportswear company said earlier this month that the partnership was “under review.”
The US rapper has made headlines for a string on controversies this month. It started when he staged a surprise YZY show in Paris that featured T-shirts with the slogan “White Lives Matter” - a phrase the Anti-Defamation League says is a white supremacist phrase that emerged in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
West then shared screenshots on Instagram of a conversation with fellow rapper Sean Combs - also known as Diddy and Puff Daddy – who criticised him for wearing the shirt.
In one of the messages, West told Diddy: “Ima use you as an example to show the Jewish people that told you to call me that no one can threaten or influence me.” He was suspended from Instagram as a result.
Shortly afterwards, he took to Twitter where he tweeted to his 31.3 million followers: “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE The funny thing is I actually can’t be antisemitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”
“Death con 3” appeared to be an erroneous reference to the US military heightened alert status DEFCON 3. West was then also suspended from Twitter.
He then went on Revolt TV last weekend where he made a number of antisemitic statement, including claiming that the “Jewish media” locked him out of social media platforms, and also claimed that “Jewish people control the black voice.”
On Wednesday, West appeared on 'Piers Morgan Uncensored' where he eventually apologised for his antisemitic tweet - but there was no mention of his later rant on Revolt TV. The full two-hour interview is set to air tonight.
