After Adidas dropped Kanye West over his repeated antisemitic comments, the former billionaire lost his status and was unceremoniously replaced by Sean “Diddy” Combs. In response, fans flocked to GoFundMe, the crowdfunding platform, to raise money to restore West’s status as a billionaire.
Several campaigns cropped up on GoFundMe following news of the sportswear brand cutting ties with West, according to AllHipHop, including one page declaring their goal to “Make Kanye West a Billionaire Again.”
According to Forbes, West’s deal with Adidas was estimated at a value of $1.5 billion. Without that deal, the artist’s net worth is reportedly now $400 million.
GoFundMe seems to have removed the fundraisers, which apparently only reached an earning of five dollars before being taken down. However, fans have rallied for West before.
In 2016, West posted on Twitter that he was $53 million in debt, he then asked Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to invest $1 billion into his “ideas.”
Then, one guy, Jeremy Piatt, launched a GoFundMe for the artist. Titled, “Get Kanye Out of Debt,” the page is still public and raised $57,398 of $53,000,000 goal. “It doesn’t look like he’s going to get Mark Zuckerberg’s help that he desperately needs,” Piatt wrote. “Sure he is personally rich and can buy furs and houses for his family, but without our help, the true genius of Kanye West can’t be realized.”
Sadly, the dream wasn’t realized and Piatt reported that “Mr. Kanye West’s camp has declined the funds raised by this GoFundMe campaign” and that the funds would instead go to Notes for Notes, a non-profit that offers youth free access to instruments and musical education.
In the last couple of weeks, West has managed to be escorted out of Skechers after the Adidas drop, removed from Apple Music’s Essentials playlist, and saw the only two known athletes leave Donda Sports agency.