Candace Owens Defends Kanye West: Adidas 'Better Pay Ye'

Candace Owens on Tuesday addressed Adidas' decision to end its business dealings with Kanye West, saying the company "better pay Ye."

In a series of messages posted on Twitter, the conservative pundit discussed the Tuesday announcement from Adidas that it was terminating its partnership with West—who legally changed his name to Ye in 2021—following recent comments from the rap superstar that have been deemed antisemitic by many people.

"As a company, @Adidas has every right to sever ties with whomever. That said, they better pay Ye," Owens tweeted.

She added, "We are not going to witness Ye's intellectual property be stolen and his life bankrupted while being told black people need to shut up about it or suffer the same consequence."

Owens and Ye have been closely linked in recent weeks. She appeared with him at his October 3 fashion show in Paris and joined him in wearing "White Lives Matter" shirts. Ye later attended the Nashville premiere of Owens' documentary The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM on October 12.

Owens is also married to George Farmer, the CEO of the social media platform Parler, which Ye recently agreed to acquire.

Elsewhere in her thread about Adidas and Ye, Owens wrote: "Too many black celebrities in my inbox telling me that they believe what is happening to Ye is wrong but they are scared to speak out because executives are telling them to 'stay out of it.'"

Among the controversial statements Ye has made recently that have been deemed to be antisemitic is an October 9 tweet in which he wrote that he was "going death con 3 on Jewish people."

Owens defended Ye's comments on the October 10 episode of her Daily Wire podcast.

"Now, if you are an honest person, you did not think this tweet was antisemitic," she said. "You did not think that he wrote this tweet because he hates or wants to genocide Jewish people. This does not represent the beginning of the Holocaust."

Owens also said it was unclear what Ye meant by "death con 3." Many people have assumed Ye meant to write "DEFCON (defense readiness condition)," which is an alert state of the U.S. military.

"Did he mean DEFCON 3, which would be a military-defense position?" Owens said on her show. "Not an offense, for those of you that are offended, a military defense position. Is he tweeting this because he's reading the Newsweek headline, calling him an antisemitic?"

Newsweek reached out to Owens for comment.

Update 10/25/22, 3:15 p.m. ET: This story was updated with additional information.