Kanye West Shows Adult Video To Horrified Adidas Execs During Business Meeting

In a predictably bizarre move, Kanye West lashed out at Adidas execs at a recent business meeting and shocked them by showing them a porn video on his phone. The meeting, which was attended by West and four businessmen, was uploaded to the rapper’s YouTube page in a clip titled “LAST WEEK.”

  1. It was certainly an uncomfortable scene (pun intended). In the 30-minute video, in which everyone but West’s face is blurred out, Kanye can be seen showing the Adidas execs a video on his phone. At one point, one of the men asks, “Is this a porn movie?” and West responds, “Yeah.” One of the execs then says, “Jesus Christ.”
  2. West didn’t seem to see the problem. While it was clear the men were uncomfortable with the video being played, the Yeezy mogul refused to turn it off. One of the businessmen finally said, “Come on, man, come on,” before pushing West’s arm and phone away from him.
  3. He was trying to make a bizarre parallel between the plot of the adult film and his business dealings with Adidas. While the connection seemed to be tenuous at best in the eyes of the Adidas employees, Kanye West thought it made perfect sense. “I’m only gonna work with Adidas if he’s the CEO,” West says in the clip as he points to one of the members of his own entourage. “You guys have done wrong by the company, by the business, and by the partnership. The whole concept of this video is that the guy had cheated, so then the girl was like, ‘Well then I’m going to do the thing that’s your worst nightmare.'” He then looked directly at the execs before proclaiming: “This is your worst nightmare. Your worst nightmare is not me hitting you. Your worst nightmare is not me playing the porn. Your worst nightmare is not me screaming. We’ve done all this.”
  4. The execs tried to shut down the tirade. Noting that the discussion wasn’t going anywhere, one of the execs cuts West off, asking: “Is it your dream, or is it a nightmare? What are we doing?” One of West’s team members then replies: “What you’re feeling right now is extreme discomfort, and that is exactly the point because when someone steals this man’s ideas, his creations, it’s like you’re stealing a child. These are all children of his mind, and you’ve kidnapped them. There are Yeezy-inspired derivatives that are making significant revenue because people can’t tell the difference because it’s so inspired … He’s angry, and he’s right.”
  5. West pointed out that he recently stopped working with Gap for similar reasons. The more objective response from West’s associate seemed to soften the execs’ stance, and one admitted that he and his colleagues can “certainly do a lot better in the way [they] work with [West].” Soon after, West stormed out of the meeting, but not before proclaiming himself “the king of culture.”
  6. It’s clear he wants everything on his terms. Kanye West told the execs before ending the meeting that he expects Adidas to bend to his will. “Our army is so prepared. This is a different level of nuclear activity that no one will recover from,” he said. “Adidas has to come and be like … ‘Ye, what do you want?’ I’m not talking to you guys. I’m not arguing about money with people broker than me. I’m not arguing about ideas with people with lesser ideas than me.” Is Kanye West a bully as Gigi Hadid claimed, or does he have a point?
Jennifer Still is a writer and editor with more than 10 years of experience. The managing editor of Bolde, she has bylines in Vanity Fair, Business Insider, The New York Times, Glamour, Bon Appetit, and many more. You can follow her on Twitter @jenniferlstill
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