Kanye West Wants to Terminate Billion-Dollar Business Deal

Kanye West, now known as Ye, is ready to end his partnership with Gap. The DONDA rapper signed a 10-year deal in 2020 with the retailer for its Yeezy Gap apparel line and reportedly made $1 billion in sales in the first year, Deadline notes. In 2021, Bloomberg estimated that about $970 million of the hip-hop mogul’s fortune was attributable to the Gap deal. This is aside from his Adidas sneaker deal for his Yeezy sneakers. 

Ye’s lawyers sent a letter to Gap Inc notifying them that he was terminating the partnership. The father of four is alleging that Gap breached the agreement by not selling Yeezy Gap-branded products at its brick-and-mortar retail locations and failing to open dedicated stores for the brand. Since his on-air appearance on Closing Bell discussing his frustrations, Gap has removed promotional advertising billboards from Times Square in New York City.

While appearing on Closing Bell, Ye ranted about his problems with the deal. “It was always a dream of mine to take the best product possible to the masses…We designed an entire collection and, actually, I wasn’t able to set the actual price that I wanted for this collection,” he said in part. “And then they [Gap] took one of the shirts and sold it for $19. Didn’t price my stuff [how I wanted]. Priced my stuff at like $200 and above their whole price point normally, and then did the exact shirt for like $20.”

Despite prices for offer jackets that run $200 each, Ye’s dedicated supporters purchased in minutes. A blue puffer jacket from the first line sold out within hours in June 2021. Later that year, it was made available again.