Ye lost Balenciaga, CAA, Gap and adidas in five days of October 2022

Ye opened Balenciaga’s show in Paris on 2 Oct 2022. Three weeks later the house had cut him off, and so had his agency, Gap and adidas, the company that’d made his sneakers since 2013.

It took five days, from 21 to 25 Oct, for the partners behind Yeezy to walk. What came after took far longer. adidas spent two years deciding what to do with the shoes it’d already made.

Gap was already on its way out

The Gap deal didn’t survive September. Ye ended it on 15 Sep 2022, and Gap said it’d sell through the stock it held, CNBC reported. Then came his antisemitic posts and interviews in October.

Kering, Balenciaga’s parent, moved first. On 21 Oct it told WWD the house had “no longer any relationship nor any plans for future projects related to this artist.” CAA dropped him on 24 Oct. MRC, the studio behind a finished documentary about him, said it wouldn’t release it, Variety reported.

25 Oct: adidas and Gap on the same day

adidas put out its statement from Herzogenaurach. It called Ye’s recent comments and actions “unacceptable, hateful and dangerous” and said the partnership was over, “immediately”. It wouldn’t make any more Yeezy product, it’d stop all payments to Ye and his companies, and it put the hit to 2022 net income at up to €250 million.

One line mattered more for the shoes. adidas said it was “the sole owner of all design rights to existing products as well as previous and new colorways.” The designs weren’t leaving with him.

Gap followed that day. It pulled Yeezy Gap from its stores and shut yeezygap.com. “Antisemitism, racism and hate in any form are inexcusable,” its statement said. Foot Locker said it wouldn’t carry future Yeezy drops. Forbes, which had valued the adidas deal at $1.5 billion, cut its estimate of Ye’s net worth to $400 million, CNBC reported.

The shoes adidas still had: a €1.2 billion problem

By February adidas had a number. On 9 Feb 2023 it said that not selling the leftover Yeezy stock would take about €1.2 billion off that year’s revenue and €500 million off operating profit. Writing the pairs off would’ve cost another €500 million.

It didn’t write them off. The first pairs went back on sale in May 2023. Part of the money went to groups including the Anti-Defamation League and the Philonise & Keeta Floyd Institute for Social Change, Hypebeast reported.

“Selling and donating was the preferred option among all organizations and stakeholders we spoke to.” Bjørn Gulden, adidas CEO, via Hypebeast

Yeezy brought adidas about €750 million in 2023 and €650 million in 2024, and the last pairs sold in the fourth quarter of 2024. adidas told JTA it’d donated or set aside more than €250 million, €200 million of it for the adidas Foundation.

In March 2025, two and a half years after the statement from Herzogenaurach, adidas’s CFO Harm Ohlmeyer said there wasn’t a pair left. “There is not one Yeezy shoe left, it has all been sold, and that episode is behind us,” he said, Sportico reported.