Los Angeles Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald and Boston Celtics swingman Jaylen Brown terminated their associations Tuesday with Donda Sports, the brand management agency owned by the artist formerly known as Kanye West.
Donald and Brown signed deals with Donda Sports earlier this year to represent some of their interests outside of their sports. Both star athletes emphatically dropped the agency owned by Ye, as the music mogul is now known, amid rising international condemnation of his latest round of offensive and antisemitic remarks.
German sportswear giant Adidas also ended its extraordinarily lucrative partnership with Ye on Tuesday.
Donald, the three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year, signed with Donda Sports last spring after the Rams won the Super Bowl. The seven-time All-Pro and his wife, Erica, denounced West’s “displays of hate and antisemitism” in a statement announcing their decision.
“We felt a responsibility to send a clear message that hateful words and actions have consequences and that we must do better as human beings,” they wrote. “We do not feel our beliefs, voices and actions belong anywhere near a space that misrepresents and oppresses people of any background, ethnicity or race.”
— AD_99 (@AaronDonald97) October 25, 2022
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Brown emphatically reversed his own tentative decision Monday to stay with Donda Sports, saying Tuesday that he will “continue to stand strongly against any antisemitism, hate speech, misrepresentation and oppressive rhetoric of any kind.”
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