Controversy erupted following a bold fashion move by Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, who utilized a Super Bowl commercial to direct viewers to his website featuring T-shirts adorned with a swastika, a symbol associated with Nazi Germany and still used by present-day far-right extremists. These white T-shirts, bearing a black swastika on the front, were the sole items displayed for sale on the homepage of yeezy.com as of Monday morning, devoid of any accompanying text or explanation except for the enigmatic letters “HH-01,” priced at $20 each.
In the commercial, which reportedly aired in the Los Angeles area but not nationally, Ye is depicted seated in a dentist’s chair, alluding to having spent significant funds on dental enhancements and resorting to filming the ad on an iPhone due to budget constraints. While urging viewers to visit yeezy.com, the controversial swastika T-shirts are not explicitly featured or mentioned in the advertisement.
Notably, a spokesperson for Ye did not promptly respond to a request for comment from NBC News regarding this contentious development. Concurrently, Ye’s account on the social media platform X, boasting 33 million followers, has been deactivated subsequent to a series of deeply offensive and antisemitic posts.
Although Ye had previously declared on X that he would never produce a swastika-adorned shirt due to potential physical harm posed to wearers, the shirts inexplicably appeared for sale on yeezy.com over the weekend. Prior to the deactivation of his account, Ye unleashed a fresh wave of antisemitic tweets on the day of the Super Bowl, including derogatory comments and conspiracy theories targeting the Jewish community.
During his online tirades, Ye also expressed gratitude to Tesla CEO Elon Musk for providing a platform for him to vent, labeling the experience as cathartic. This controversial episode culminated in condemnation from Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, who denounced Ye for propagating “egregious displays of antisemitism, racism, and misogyny” on his X account.
Given this backdrop, Ye’s Twitter/X account was suspended in 2022 following his dissemination of antisemitic rhetoric, underscoring the unfolding controversy and public backlash against the artist’s divisive actions.
