Kanye West returns to Instagram after ban despite nearly a dozen brands dropping him over antisemitism

Kanye West returned to Instagram after a ban from the platform and a flurry of brands breaking partnerships with the rapper over the antisemitic remarks he posted earlier this month.

Late Wednesday night, West, who legally changed his name to Ye, posted again on his Instagram. He’d been blocked from doing so for weeks since the social media platform and Twitter locked him out of his accounts for sharing separate antisemitic posts that broke with each company’s terms of service.

In an Instagram story and accompanying post shared on 26 October, West seemed to address the recent fallout with Adidas and Gap, two of the larger commercial partners who have terminated their business relationship with him in recent weeks.

West shared a purported screenshot of a text conversation with “Quinn Emmanuel,” likely referring to the attorneys from Quinn Emanuel and Stradley Ronon who have previously worked for West on his partnership with Gap.

Attorneys from Quinn Emanuel, including chairman John Quinn, have represented Ye in past litigation, according to Bloomberg.

“As to adidas, you can start to make new designs for footwear, apparel and accessories immediately,” the text read. “As to Gap, the non-compete expires December, 15 2022.”

The text exchange also mentioned the Yeezy empire. The supposed attorney in the text exchange seemed to confirm that Ye maintains ownership over the brand.

“You own the Yeezy name and all trademarks associated with Yeezy,” the text concluded.

The two posts, one of which was deleted shortly after it was shared, seemed to be the rapper’s first public comment on the end of his business relationship with the German sportswear company.

On Tuesday, after the company came under intense backlash after West’s comments, with many urging the sportswear brand to end its relationship with the rapper, Adidas announced that effective immediately they would be terminating their partnership with the College Dropout artist.

“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,” the company said.

Earlier in the week, the rapper was dropped by talent agency CAA over his remarks and fashion house Balenciaga said the week before they’d be cutting ties with Ye.

The Independent reached out to Meta for comment about unlocking West’s account.

Earlier in the month, both Twitter and Instagram had blocked the rapper from posting on his account after he unleashed a series of antisemitic rants on each platform.

In the offending Instagram posts, the 45-year-old espoused antisemitic theories, which included accusing his friend Sean “Diddy” Combs of being controlled by Jewish people, while on Twitter, he made a separate rant where he claimed he would go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE”.

Both social media platforms proceeded to lock the rapper out of his respective accounts, saying that he’d broken the terms of service on each site.

It is unclear if the rapper’s Twitter account has been unlocked, as his last post on the social media platform remains 9 October.