Three days after Kanye West managed to air a Super Bowl ad for a website selling swastika shirts, Fox leadership has responded.
Jack Abernethy, the CEO of Fox Television Stations, sent a note to employees Wednesday, Variety reported.
The ad by rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, aired on three stations owned and operated by Fox in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Atlanta, as well as a separately operated affiliate in St. Louis. Shortly after the game ended Sunday night, the website changed from a full apparel shop to just the $20 swastika T-shirt. By Tuesday morning, Shopify had taken down the site.
The 30-second ad and original website cleared Fox’s legal vetting, and the network did not know the change was coming, Front Office Sports reported earlier this week. At the time, Fox did not comment.
Despite West’s years-long track record of pro-Hitler and antisemitic comments—including a weeklong meltdown on Twitter before the Super Bowl—Abernethy blamed the last-minute website switch in his note to employees.
“The ad, which was presented as a legitimate online apparel site before and during the airing of the Super Bowl, was switched at some point afterwards, and completely outside of our stations control, respondents to the commercials were redirected toward the marketing of a wholly appalling product,” Abernethy wrote in the note, according to Variety. “We regret that these commercials aired in these three markets, and we strongly condemn any form of antisemitism.” He noted Fox’s support for several foundations, including Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism.
West also ran local ads for Yeezy.com during Super Bowl LVIII, which aired without incident.
