Extending his way-too-long return to public life, Kanye West appeared in a Super Bowl ad Sunday night to promote a website selling swastika T-shirts.
The bizarrely un-cinematic spot, shot in a vertical format with an iPhone, featured West (who now calls himself Ye) reclining in a dentist’s chair. “I spent, like, all the money for the commercial on these new teeth,” he explains. “Um … um … um … go to Yeezy.com.”
Visitors on Monday to Yeezy.com, which sells merchandize for West’s fashion brand, could buy only one product: A white T-shirt emblazoned with a large black swastika. The symbol of the Nazi Party in 20th Century Germany remains in circulation today among white supremacists and hate groups.
Fox-owned stations in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Philadelphia aired the ad, according to a person familiar with the buy, after its content was reviewed by legal counsel as part of normal ad vetting. Local ads are handled differently from national spots, which in the case of last night’s game fetched an average of $7.5 million for 30 seconds. A select number of Fox affiliates owned by other companies also are understood to have aired the spot.
Fox declined to comment, as did a media buying agency said to have played a role in placing the ad.
At the time the ad ran during the game, the source noted to Deadline, yeezy.com was not featuring the swastika T-shirt. Whoever provides internet service and a domain for Yeezy.com would now be the arbiters of whether Nazi-themed apparel should be freely sold online.
The ad coincided with the deactivation of West’s account on X, formerly Twitter, after he declared himself to be a Nazi. “I’m logging out of Twitter,” he wrote in a farewell post. “I appreciate Elon for allowing me to vent. It has been very cathartic to use the world as a sounding board.”
The “sounding board” period consisted of West putting up a series of antisemitic posts. The comments prompted an outpouring of condemnation from critics including David Schwimmer and Piers Morgan. “IM A NAZI,” he wrote over the weekend. “I LOVE HITLER NOW WHAT BITCHES.” In another all-caps blast, he added: “SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE JEWISH AND I DONT TRUST ANY OF THEM.”
West had recently been welcomed back to X by Musk after a prior ban for a previous spree of antisemitism. Apparel giant Adidas parted ways with Yeezy and West over the outbursts in 2022.
