Shopify Shuts Down Kanye West’s Yeezy Site After Days Of Selling Only One Thing: A Swastika T-Shirt – Forbes
Source: Forbes
Kanye West’s talent agency has dropped him as a client after he posted dozens of antisemitic messages online and sold swastika T-shirts on his fashion brand’s website, leading Shopify to shut down the site—and as he faces a lawsuit from an Jewish ex-staffer who alleges he once texted her, “Hail Hitler.”
Kanye West and Bianca Censori at the Grammy Awards.
Feb. 11Visitors to yeezy.com were greeted with an all-white screen and the words, “Something went wrong. What happened? This store is unavailable.”
Shopify, a widely used e-commerce platform, told multiple news outlets it was responsible for the website’s removal: “All merchants are responsible for following the rules of our platform. This merchant did not engage in authentic commerce practices and violated our terms, so we removed them from Shopify,” the company said.
It’s unclear if any of the swastika shirts being sold on the website were shipped to customers in the two days they were available for purchase.
Feb. 11An unnamed Jewish woman who used to work for Yeezy sued him in California superior court Tuesday, alleging she was discriminated against and harassed by West because of her sex and religion.
The plaintiff, who said she worked as a marketer for Yeezy in 2024, said she was subject to antisemitic remarks, including a text reading, “Welcome to the first day of working for Hitler,” and was sent pornographic material and harassing text messages.
Feb. 10 33&West, a Los Angeles talent agency, dropped West as a client, and his agent, Daniel McCartney, posted to Instagram the agency was done working with West “due to his harmful and hateful remarks that myself nor 33&West can stand for.”
Feb. 10After continuing to tweet throughout the weekend, the @kanyewest account on X showed no past tweets and read, “This account doesn’t exist” on Monday morning.
Before the account went dark, he posted about Taylor Swift singing along to halftime performer Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show set, which included his Grammy-winning song “Not Like Us,” a diss track aimed at fellow rapper Drake that calls him a “certified pedophile.” “WHY ARE WE LETTING TAYLOR SWIFT BE SEEN ON TV SINGING A SONG ABOUT TAKING A BLACK MAN DOWN AND ACCUSING OF THINGS THAT CAN TAKE A BLACK MAN DOWN FOR LIFE,” West posted. “KENDRICK IS BEING USED BY THESE WHITE PEOPLE AND JEWS AND SO AM I.”
The final message posted to West’s account was: “I’m logging out of Twitter. I appreciate Elon for allowing me to vent. It has been very cathartic to use the world as a sounding board.”
Billionaire X owner Elon Musk later said his account had been taken down by the platform in response to a tweet from conservative podcaster Joey Mannarino, who called for West to be banned, “Not because I don’t believe in free speech, but because he’s posting literal porn on the timeline.” Musk replied, “Given what he has posted, his account is now classified as NSFW. You should not be seeing that anymore.”
Feb. 9 West ran a Super Bowl ad in the Los Angeles area Sunday night directing people to yeezy.com, where a $20 plain white T-shirt with a black swastika printed on the front was the only item available for sale.
The ad showed West sitting in a dentist’s chair filming himself with what he was was an iPhone. “So what’s up, guys, I spent, like all the money for the commercial on these new teeth,” he said. “So once again, I had to shoot it on the iPhone,” he said. “Um… um… go to yeezy.com.”
Feb. 8 West posted on X, “I would never sell a swastika tee because people could be physically harmed wearing it … I love my fans and supporters.”
Feb. 6 West started posting bizarre comments—including antisemitic and misogynistic takes—on his X account, including that he was “NEVER APOLOGIZING FOR MY JEWISH COMMENTS” and “IM A NAZI.” He made dozens of posts over a 12-hour span, including pleas to President Donald Trump to pardon Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is in jail awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges.
Feb. 2West said in a podcast interview he’d been newly diagnosed with autism after a false diagnosis of bipolar disorder nearly 10 years ago. On Justin Laboy’s “The Download,” he said autism, a neurological and developmental disorder, has fueled some of his strange public behavior and said it can make him obstinate and argumentative, referencing the title of his hit song ,”Can’t Tell Me Nothing.” West also said he no longer takes the medication that was prescribed for his bipolar disorder, saying it blocked his creativity.
Feb. 2West sparked controversy at the Grammy Awards when he and his wife, Bianca Censori, unexpectedly walked the red carpet. Censori walked in a sheer dress that put her nude body on display, sparking an online debate over whether the dress was an empowering artistic statement or a degrading form of coercion by West. He then posted to X that the “invisible dress” was tailored six times before the event: “And just like magic poof we disappeared.”
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