Kanye West’s Yeezy Website Shut Down by Shopify for Selling Swastika T-Shirt

Kanye West’s Yeezy.com was taken down Tuesday by Shopify for its single-item sale of a Swastika t-shirt after going live following a strange Super Bowl ad. The site now is blank and reads with a simple “something went wrong” and that the store is unavailable. 

Shopify shared a statement about its decision to take down the site: “All merchants are responsible for following the rules of our platform. This merchant did not engage in authentic commerce practices and violated our terms, so we removed them from Shopify.”

West promoted the site during Sunday night’s game. The ad, which was cheaply shot video taken with an iPhone, featured West sitting on a dentist’s chair where he tells viewers to visit his website, Yeezy.com.

In the ad, he also says he couldn’t afford a nicer campaign because he spent all his money on his grill. The commercial wasn’t actually seen by a majority of Super Bowl viewers. According to media reports it aired during the game on local Fox affiliates in just three markets: Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Atlanta.

It also appears West took pains to deceive both the local stations. According to multiple reports, at the time the ad aired, the website had sales listings for multiple items of clothing. However, within an hour of the ad airing, all of those items were removed and replaced with just one option, a t-shirt with a swastika on it, called “HH-01,” which West is selling for $20.

Despite immediate backlash, Shopify kept the website running for more than 24 hours and allowed customers to purchase the antisemitic merch. The Anti-Defamation League urged Fox Sports to condemn the ad and created a petition for others to sign in agreement. 

“At the Super Bowl, hate took a front-row seat. Kanye West promoted an ad with a link to swastika t-shirts, broadcasting it to millions on live TV,” the ADL said in response to the website. “Just days earlier, his dangerous rants on X praised Hitler, self-identified as a Nazi, and spread antisemitic vitriol. In 2022, ADL identified 30 incidents of harassment, assault, and vandalism linked to Kanye’s online outbursts. We refuse to let hate win. Bigotry has consequences. Join ADL in demanding that Fox Sports condemn this ad and never give hate a platform again.”

The commercial and website came just days after West went on an unhinged rant on X (formerly Twitter). In a series of antisemitic tweets West declared. ““I love Hitler. Now what b—s” and “I’m a Nazi.” The rapper also captioned an image of himself wearing a “say no to Nazis” with “I used to be woke too.”

As of Monday, West’s X account was deactivated. It’s unclear if the account was taken down by the rapper or if X took the account offline for violating the platform’s policies on hate speech.  

X, which is owned by Elon Musk, specifically states users cannot “directly attack other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability or serious disease.” X did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment on the deactivation.

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