Athletes Aaron Donald and Jaylen Brown have announced they are leaving Kanye West’s Donda Sports following the rapper and fashion designer’s recent antisemitic remarks. The moves come after multiple companies, including Adidas, announced they were ending their partnership with West, now legally known as Ye.
Donald, an all-pro and Super Bowl-winning defensive tackle with the Los Angeles Rams, along with his wife, Erica Donald, said Tuesday in a statement that the decision was made in part because of Ye’s recent “irresponsible” statements.
“Our family has made the decision to part ways with Donda Sports,” the statement read. “The recent comments and displays of hate and antisemitism are the exact opposite of how we choose to live our lives and raise our children. We find them to be irresponsible and go against everything we believe in as a family.”
“As parents and members of society, we felt a responsibility to send a clear message that hateful words and actions have consequences and that we must do better as human beings,” the two added. “We do not feel our beliefs, voices and actions belong anywhere near a space that misrepresents and oppresses people of any background, ethnicity or race.”
Brown, a guard for the Boston Celtics, also announced his departure from Ye’s sports marketing agency. Brown on Monday had told The Boston Globe that he would not depart Donda Sports, despite disagreeing with Ye’s antisemitic comments.
In a statement Tuesday, Brown apologized and said his earlier comments “lacked clarity.
“In the past 24 hours, I have been able to reflect and better understand how my previous statements lack clarity in expressing my stance against recent insensitive public remarks and actions,” Brown wrote. “For that, I apologize. And in this, I seek to be as clear as possible. I have always, and will always continue to stand strongly against any antisemitism, hate speech, misrepresentation, and oppressive rhetoric of any kind.”
“I now recognize that there are many times when my voice and position can’t coexist in spaces that don’t correspond with my stance or my values… I am terminating my associating with Donda Sports,” Brown added.
Earlier in October, Ye tweeted that he was going to go “death [sic] con 3” on Jewish people, an apparent reference to the U.S. military’s readiness system, DEFCON. He also posted a screenshot on Instagram of an alleged text exchange with Sean “Diddy” Combs, in which Ye accused Combs of being controlled by Jews.
In addition to his recent antisemitic comments, Ye earlier this month was criticized for wearing a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt to his Yeezy collection show in Paris. The phrase has been used by white supremacist groups and sympathizers in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, according to the Anti-Defamation League. Criticism of the shirt is what appeared to lead Ye to lash out at Combs.
Ye has in the past also come under fire for suggesting that slavery was a choice and for calling COVID-19 vaccines the “mark of the beast.”
The firestorm of controversy has prompted multiple business entities to distance themselves from Ye.
In the past few days, Ye’s talent agency, CAA, dropped him, and television studio MRC announced Monday that it is shelving a completed documentary about him. Ari Emmanuel, CEO of talent firm Endeavor, wrote an op-ed in the Financial Times calling for all businesses to stop working with Ye over his antisemitism.
Foot Locker on Tuesday said that it will “not be supporting any future Yeezy product drops, and we have instructed our retail operators to pull any existing product from our shelves and digital sites.”
