Adidas boss Bjørn Gulden defends Kanye West’s anti-Semitic outbursts and says he ‘doesn’t think he meant what he said’

The chief executive of Adidas has defended Kanye West’s anti-Semitic outbursts after the company ended its nine-year relationship with the rapper last fall.

CEO Bjørn Gulden, 58, said: ‘I don’t think he meant what he said,’ and praised the rapper for being one of the most ‘creative people in the world.’

West, 46, said that he wanted to go ‘death con 3’ on Jewish people in a tweet last October. As a result, Adidas ended its business relationship with him, which had spanned nearly a decade.

After the split, Adidas donated part of the $560 million it made when offloading $1.3billion worth of Yeezy’s unsold shoes to groups fighting antisemitism and other forms of hate.

Gulden made his most recent comments in a conversation with Nicolai Tangen, the CEO of Norges Investment Bank, which has $500million worth of stock in Adidas.

Gulden said on the In Good Company podcast: ‘I think Kanye West is one of the most creative people in the world. Both in music and what I call street culture.

‘He’s extremely creative and has, together with Adi, created a Yeezy line that was very successful.

‘And then, as a creative person, he made some statements which wasn’t that good.

‘And that caused Adi to break the contract and withdraw the product.

‘Very unfortunate because I don’t think he meant what he said, and I don’t think he’s a bad person – it just came across that way.’

The CEO said Adidas lost ‘one of the most successful collabs in history’ and the break was ‘very sad.’ The company used to earn an estimated $2billion a year from their Yeezy shoes.

He added: ‘When you work with third parties, that could happen. It’s part of the game. That can happen with an athlete — it can happen with an entertainer. It’s part of the business.’

Last year, West was banned from Twitter and lost a series of lucrative sponsorship deals after he made a variety of anti-Semitic statements.