What Adidas Knew About Kanye

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Warning: this episode contains some explicit language. When Adidas terminated its multibillion-dollar partnership with Kanye West over his antisemitic and other offensive public remarks, it seemed like a straightforward story of a celebrity’s suddenly imploding. But a New York Times examination has found that, behind the scenes, the collaboration was fraught from the start. Megan Twohey, an investigative reporter for The Times, talks about what she discovered when she delved into the meltdown.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times, I'm like Wabaro. This is the Daily.
0:05.0	Today, when Adidas terminated its multi-billion dollar partnership with Kagni West
0:19.4	over his anti-Semitic remarks, it seemed from the outside like a straightforward story of a celebrity
0:26.8	suddenly imploding.
0:29.4	My colleague, Investigative reporter Megan Toe, got inside the partnership and found that the reality was far more complicated.
0:45.0	It's Friday, Friday, November 10th.
0:47.0	Megan, I want to start with a very simple question.
0:53.0	Why have you and why have we, the Times, spent all this time investigating Kagni West and his relationship with Adidas?
1:02.0	Well, Michael, if you'll recall... his relationship with Adidas.
1:03.0	Well, Michael, if you'll recall,
1:05.0	it was almost exactly one year ago
1:07.4	that Adidas cut ties with Kanye West
1:10.4	as he was in the midst of making anti-Semitic and other public inflammatory comments.
1:17.0	And...
1:18.0	As he basically melted down.
1:19.0	As he was like he was having a public implosion and this company said, we're no longer doing business with him.
1:24.4	We don't tolerate this kind of behavior.
1:26.7	This goes against our ethics.
1:28.4	So we're ending this relationship.
1:30.6	Right.
1:31.6	And end of story. To some extent, yes, but while the end of this story had
1:36.0	played out in public, there was a lot we didn't know about the beginning of the
	...

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