How Kanye West's Antisemitic Comments Lost Him His Billionaire Status as Brands Cut Ties
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Kanye West has fallen from billionaire status after losing deals with Adidas, Balenciaga and Gap as a result of his repeated antisemitic comments.
The 43-year-old rapper, who was worth $6.6 billion as of March 2021, is now worth $400 million according to Forbes — money that comes from his several real estate properties, music catalog, cash and a 5% stake in ex-wife Kim Kardashian's Skims shapewear brand.
Earlier this month, he also entered into an agreement to purchase the right-wing social media platform Parler after his Instagram and Twitter accounts were restricted due to offensive comments toward the Jewish community, though figures were not disclosed.
Following the end of his deal with Adidas, the brand said West's "recent comments and actions have been unacceptable, hateful and dangerous, and they violate the company's values of diversity and inclusion, mutual respect and fairness."
Gilbert Carrasquillo/GC Images Kanye West
Gap's partnership with his Yeezy brand also ended last month. At the time, The Wall Street Journal reported West's attorneys initiated the deal's termination.
On Tuesday, however, Gap released a statement confirming West's "recent remarks and behavior" are the reason for the contract's termination. "Antisemitism, racism and hate in any form are inexcusable and not tolerated in accordance with our values," continued the brand's statement.
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Additionally, per The New York Times, the "Good Life" performer's music contract with Def Jam Recordings ended after the release of 2021's Donda album. And in September, JP Morgan Chase ended their business relationship with the rapper, requesting West transfer his accounts from the bank by Nov. 20, the BBC reported.
So, what are West's current assets and their values?
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Fashion
West's relationship with Adidas began in 2013, and Forbes reported on Tuesday that West's Adidas deal accounted for $1.5 billion of his net worth — though the musician has claimed the partnership was actually worth $4.3 billion. Bloomberg reported similar numbers in March 2021, writing that the deal was valued at a number between $3.2 billion to $4.7 billion. The publication also reported that Adidas will absorb up to $247 million in a hit to the corporation's earnings as a result of ending the deal.
His Yeezy brand's deal with Gap, which was announced in 2020, was initially meant to last 10 years and generate $1 billion in yearly sales. However, the Yeezy Gap in-store launch date was repeatedly pushed back, and only two products (exclusively sold online) were actually produced before it was terminated in September, according to The New York Times.
Rindoff/Dufour/Getty Kanye West
Separately from his initial deal with Gap, West also struck a deal with Balenciaga to produce a line of clothes to be sold at the retailer under the label Yeezy Gap Engineered by Balenciaga in January 2021. The value of his deal with the high-fashion brand was unknown.
West announced via a September interview with Bloomberg that he was already planning to "go it alone" and end his partnerships with Gap and Adidas. "No one should be held in that position where people can steal from them and say, 'We're just paying you to shut up,'" West said to Bloomberg. "Now it's time for Ye to make the new industry. No more companies standing in between me and the audience."
RELATED: Balenciaga Cuts Ties with Kanye West amid 'White Lives Matter' Shirt and Antisemitic Remarks
Brad Barket/Getty for Fast Company Kanye West
Music
The exact value of West and his G.O.O.D. Music record label imprint's contract with Def Jam was unknown, but it seems the rapper's music-based revenue has dropped in recent years. The musician hasn't completed a full-length concert tour since the Yeezus Tour — which grossed over $31 million — wrapped in 2014. His subsequent Saint Pablo Tour reportedly raked in over $51 million, but West canceled nearly two dozen dates at the end of the tour due to stress and exhaustion and provided refunds to ticket holders.
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He's since rarely held traditional concerts, with most of his performances being one-off dates and Sunday Services — which he said has cost him $50 million on a 2020 episode of Nick Cannon's podcast. Last year, West also withdrew from a planned headlining performance at Coachella.
Following the end of West's deal with Def Jam, he released his latest album Donda 2 exclusively via a $200 device called a Stem Player. Due to its non-traditional bundled release, Billboard did not report the album's sales or count them toward its charts. According to Variety, however, West has sold around 39,500 Stem Players as of February 2022 — which amounts to around $7,900,000 in sales.
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images Kanye West
Properties
West's biggest assets, it now seems, are his several luxury homes and the money he's made from selling them. In 2014, he bought a $20 million house in Hidden Hills, California for Kardashian, 42, and their children — North, 9, Saint, 6, Chicago, 4, and Psalm, 3 — which she bought from him for $23 million last year amid their divorce, per the New York Post.
He currently owns a ranch near Cody, Wyoming, which was originally referred to as "Monster Lake Ranch," then renamed "West Lake Ranch" and informally, "Yeezy Campus," which was purchased in 2019 for $14 million. It's been on sale for $11 million since October 2021, but the property has not sold. Also in 2019, West bought another $14 million property called "Bighorn Mountain Ranch" and a giant warehouse near Greybull, which he still owns.
In April 2020, local Chicago news station WGN9 reported that West purchased his childhood home in the city's South Shore neighborhood for around $225,000. The home was previously owned by his mother, Donda, who purchased it in the early 1980s and sold it in 2004.
RELATED: Kanye West Purchases Beachfront Malibu Property for Nearly $60 Million: Source
A $60 million beachfront property in Malibu was purchased by West last year, a real estate source told PEOPLE in September 2021.
The following month, he reportedly purchased a luxury home in Wijnegem, Belgium, a suburb of Antwerp, according to Daily Mail. Its price is unknown.
In December 2021, after Kardashian purchased the Hidden Hills home, West then bought one of his own right across the street for $4.5 million — a "teardown" built in 1955. At the time, sources told PEOPLE he planned to build on the property, though it's unclear if the process has begun.
Ronald Martinez/Getty Kanye West
Presidential Campaign
Another source of West's spending was his infamous failed 2020 presidential campaign, for which he contributed nearly $12.5 million of his own money while raising a little more than $2 million from outside donors, according to his final Federal Election Commission report.
In all, the rapper and designer raised $14.5 million to fund his late-in-the-cycle bid, in which he barely qualified for the ballot in a dozen states and earned only about 66,000 votes nationally.
After losing the election in November 2020 after receiving about 66,000 votes nationally, West took to Twitter and wrote, "KANYE 2024." He ended his run with about $1.3 million in the bank.
It's unclear if he'll follow through in the next presidential election, though he did tease a 2024 campaign in a recent song with Future titled "Keep It Burnin," which was released in April. "When you run for '24, I bet your spouse gon' be with you / Who put this together? Me, that's who," rapped West on the track.
Purchases
Despite losing out on several deals, one of West's still-intact recent business ventures is his purchase of the controversial conservative social media site Parler, which was announced by its parent company Parlement Technologies earlier this month. "The acquisition ensures Parler a future role in creating an uncancelable ecosystem where all voices are welcome," read a statement from the company at the time. The deal's value is currently unknown.
