Kanye West joined up with Adidas in 2013 and was a partner of the brand till 2022, when he was dropped for his antisemitic remarks. Now Jon Wexler, a former Adidas executive, has revealed how he was told by former Adidas CMO Hermann Deininger to either sign a deal with West or shoot him.
Wexler recounted the whole story while making an appearance on the All The Smoke podcast’s latest episode, released on YouTube on March 12, 2026, after being asked about his initial attempt to sign West to Adidas and where he got the idea from:
“Che Pope, who was running Good Music, called Todd Krinsky, who was at Reebok. Todd called me and said, “I’ve known Che all my life, he said “Kanye is frustrated at Nike, he’s ready to leave.” and I was like “We need to work with him. We need that.” And Todd was like “I’ll talk to Che.”
After that, Wexler and Kanye West talked directly and Adidas offered Kanye West a deal, which West refused. Soon after that, in June 2013, he received several missed calls from West and eventually talked to him. Wexler said to the podcast that it was the call in June 2013 that West was referring to when he later said that Wexler had saved his life.
After talking about the call, Wexler was asked about how he got the company’s German executives on the Black cultural link of West, which is when he revealed the CMO Hermann Deininger tidbit:
“So to win in the sneaker market, you have to win in North America and all things start here. So that was like step one. The CMO of Adidas at the time was a guy named Hermann Deininger and he came to my office and he said, ” Should we sign Kanye?” And I said “yes.”… “
Wexler then went on to say Deininger had two more people called in for the discussion and in that subsequent discussion, he said what he said:
“And he said, “we can either sign him. We can let him keep killing us at Nike or we can shoot him.” And I said “Well, we’re clearly not going to shoot him. So let me go sign him.” “And then he said “Okay, go sign him or you’re fired.” And I said “Alright Hermann, I understand what I get if I don’t sign him. But what do you I get if I do?””
More on Kanye West’s partnership with Adidas
Kanye West’s partnership with Adidas, before it was dissolved in 2022, was worth more than a billion dollars. West first revealed the deal on Angie Martinez’s Hot 97 radio show at the time.
This first deal with Adidas was successful, with West helping the brand with their sneaker models, like the NMD models, as well as launching his own Yeezy Boost 750 model of sneaker.
In 2016, Adidas signed another deal with Kanye West, which was supposed to last till 2026. In 2019, the company’s partnership with West in the form of the Adidas Yeezy had more than $1 billion in sales, with Yeezy shoes having a similar sales record in 2021.
However, as mentioned above, in 2022, after West’s antisemitic remarks, Adidas terminated the deal in October 2022. This was followed by Adidas being sued by investors in 2023 over the brand’s failure to disclose the risks of a partnership with West to shareholders.
Edited by Amey Mirashi