Shopify shutters Kanye West's Yeezy website: Selling swastika shirt 'violated our terms'
Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has gone dark in another corner of the internet amid his latest round of vitriolic, intentionally vile and antisemitic outbursts. This time, not by choice.
E-commerce platform Shopify pulled the plug on the rapper's efforts to sell hate-symbol merchandise, shutting down his Yeezy clothing website. Earlier this week, the now-defunct site was modified to sell only one item: a $20 white T-shirt emblazoned with a black swastika.
The rapper and entrepreneur, who legally changed his name in 2021, advertised the website during a cryptic commercial that aired during Super Bowl LIX on Sunday. As of Tuesday morning, the website displays error messages: "Something went wrong" and "This store is unavailable."
A spokesperson for Shopify said Tuesday in a statement to The Times that merchants using its platform must adhere to its rules and terms of service. Yeezy.com "did not engage in authentic commerce practices and violated our terms so we removed them from Shopify," the statement said.
Read more: Kanye West exits X, credits Elon Musk with 'allowing me to vent' via venomous rants
The spokesperson did not immediately clarify which terms Yeezy.com violated, but Shopify informs users on its website they cannot engage in activities that "breach the social contract of commerce" and may not "call for, or threaten, violence against specific people or groups."
Yeezy.com was central to Ye's Super Bowl ad and, at the time of airing, reportedly did not feature the hate symbol T-shirt but instead other merchandise including hoodies and socks. Variety reported Monday that Ye allegedly switched the site to showcase the swastika shirt within an hour of the commercial airing in Los Angeles.
The commercial itself — a selfie video Ye seemingly recorded during a visit to the dentist — didn't raise any flags before it aired on three Fox-owned stations.
"It was such a small ad, I don't think anyone put two and two together," a source told Variety. "The copy was clean, the website was clean, and so they did their due diligence with that little part of it."
Read more: Ye explains himself again, and this time the answer is autism
In the days leading up to the Super Bowl, Ye explained on a podcast that he had been misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder. He also unleashed more antisemitic and hateful remarks on X (formerly Twitter).
Over the weekend, he used the social media platform, owned by Elon Musk, to declare himself a Nazi and express renewed praise for Adolf Hitler. He also called for the release of disgraced music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, who is behind bars awaiting trial for alleged sex trafficking and conspiracy, and said he has "dominion" over wife Bianca Censori, whom he paraded essentially naked on the 2025 Grammys red carpet.
The weekend rant wasn't the first time the "Heartless" Grammy winner made harmful comments toward the Jewish community and publicly embraced Nazism. He had faced scrutiny and fell hard from public grace in recent years for his antisemitic comments — a number of which he shared on X.
A lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles raises fresh claims about West's enthusiasm for white supremacist rhetoric. The complaint, filed by a Jewish woman who said she worked for West, alleges that in the workplace the rapper declared himself a Nazi and compared himself to Hitler.
Read more: Kanye West called himself 'Hitler' and was abusive to ex-employee, lawsuit alleges
Ye bowed out from X on Sunday after his reach was limited by Musk, who declared the account NSFW "given what he has posted," but shared a message praising the billionaire before deactivating his account.
'I appreciate Elon for allowing me to vent,' the controversial rapper tweeted. 'It has been very cathartic to use the world as a sounding board.'
Times staff writer James Queally contributed to this report.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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