UTA Chief Urges Staff to ‘Please Support the Boycott of Kanye West’
Three of Hollywood’s top agency chiefs are now calling on the entertainment industry to cut ties with Kanye West given the rapper and fashion mogul’s antisemitic rhetoric on multiple platforms and interviews.
On Sunday evening, UTA chief Jeremy Zimmer sent a companywide memo to staff titled “Rise of Anti Semitism and Hate,” writing that West’s comments’ “embolden others to amplify their vile beliefs.”
Zimmer made reference to a widely circulated Oct. 23 photo of a group of seven people who stood on a 405 freeway overpass in Los Angeles with signs that included “Kanye is right about the Jews,” as well as The Mapping Project, an anonymous effort that purported to show links between Jewish businesses in Massachusetts and “support for the colonization of Palestine.”
“Whether it’s signs on the 405 in Los Angeles, flyers on doorsteps, mapping Jewish businesses in Boston, or marching with hoods and crosses, all of these behaviors ignite the embers of bigotry, and they must not be tolerated,” Zimmer wrote.
The Beverly Hills-based agency CEO’s missive follows a similarly themed Oct. 19 column in the Financial Times by Ari Emanuel, who runs the entertainment and sports company Endeavor, which owns talent agency WME. “Those who continue to do business with West are giving his misguided hate an audience,” Emanuel wrote. “There should be no tolerance anywhere for West’s anti-Semitism.”
Emanuel added: “West is not just any person — he is a pop culture icon with millions of fans around the world. And among them are young people whose views are still being formed.”
Meanwhile, Gersh agency president Bob Gersh weighed in on Sunday, telling Variety, “People really need to hammer these companies in business with him to impress upon them how wrong it is to support somebody like this.”
Following an appearance at Paris Fashion Week in which West donned a “White Lives Matter” shirt on Oct. 3, he went to post a since-removed Oct. 8 tweet that called for “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” wrote posts on Instagram that were removed for violating content restrictions, made a stop on Fox News that included a controversial interview with Tucker Carlson (that later included unaired portions leaked to Vice News), taped an interview with the podcast Drink Champs (that was later removed from YouTube) and stopped for an interview on NewsNation with Chris Cuomo in which West said “I don’t believe in that term,” in reference to antisemitism.
Companies and partners that have business with West, whose net worth is estimated by Forbes to be at $2 billion, are under increasing pressure to cut ties with the rapper. Adidas, which has a distribution deal for West’s Yeezy shoe and fashion brand, stated earlier this month that it had placed its partnership “under review,” while French label Balenciaga cut ties on Oct. 21 and said it “no longer any relationship” with West.
In seeming response to having his tweets and Instagram posts restricted, West made a deal with the backers of a small social media platform called Parler. On Oct. 17, the company — which calls itself the “premier free speech social media app” — sent out a press release stating that it had agreed to sell itself to the artist. Parler’s CEO is George Farmer, the husband of conservative activist Candace Owens, who also donned the “White Lives Matter” shirt at Paris Fashion Week.
Marc Schneider
Billboard
