The month of October 2022 may likely go down as the complete undoing of the artist formerly known as Kanye West. During a less than 4-week span, Ye has released t-shirts that alienated millions, distributed Instagram and Twitter posts that constituted hate speech, insisted that the death of George Floyd was caused by drugs rather than police brutality, and doubled down on all of these actions over the course of multiple interviews. His actions have gotten him removed from the aforementioned social media platforms, caused interviews to be taken down from YouTube and also earned him a lawsuit from the family of George Floyd. He is no longer in direct contact with his soon to be ex-wife Kim Kardashian, and his money is no longer welcome at his bank of choice.

J. Cole Told Us Who Kanye West Was 6 Years Ago But Many Ignored Him

Throughout this spree, one of Ye’s go-to responses when questioned about his actions has been to assert that he is worth billions and that anyone who has less money should listen to him rather than the other way around. In less than a 2-week span, however, he has seen a stark reversal of fortune.

In the last week, Balenciaga ended its partnership with West, his long term record label Def Jam dropped him and his G.O.O.D. Music imprint, film company MRC announced it would not release its completed Kanye West documentary, and Gap decided to remove all Yeezy Gap products from its stores and closed YeezyGap.com. Today, Adidas, by far Kanye West’s most successful and lucrative partnership, announced it also was severing ties with West.

In a release posted to its website, Adidas stated “adidas does not tolerate antisemitism and any other sort of hate speech. Ye’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. After a thorough review, the company has taken the decision to terminate the partnership with Ye immediately, end production of Yeezy branded products and stop all payments to Ye and his companies. adidas will stop the adidas Yeezy business with immediate effect.” The company also further asserted “adidas is the sole owner of all design rights to existing products as well as previous and new colorways under the partnership,” likely a move to prevent West from taking designs to any other partner that would dare work with him.

Kanye West’s Self-Destruction Should Not Be Televised

According to Forbes magazine, the Adidas partnership represented more than $1.5 billion dollars of Kanye West’s estimated $1.9 billion net worth. If true, that would mean the man who has so proudly asserted he is a multi-billionaire has lost more than 75% of his wealth in just 2 weeks, and is now worth $400 million. However, with Creative Artists Agency, Ye’s powerful Hollywood agent also severing ties with him, even that number could soon decline. It is agencies like CAA that often play a major role in helping celebrities broker deals like the ones West has lost over the last month.

The reality is this could just be the beginning of Kanye West’s financial downfall. Fortunes can change both positively and negatively in a short amount of time. It was only 6 years ago when Kanye was publicly declaring that he was in debt and calling on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and others to help him, financially. It is hard to foresee any partner working with West in the foreseeable future. However, given the erratic and self-destructive nature of his behavior, which is tantamount to self-immolation, the stakes may be much higher for Kanye West than what is in his bank account.