How Did Kanye West’s Super Bowl Ad for Swastika Merch Make it on the Air?

During the Eagles’ trouncing of the Chiefs on Sunday night, a 30-second Super Bowl ad aired in local markets from Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West.

The rapper appeared leaned back in a dentist’s chair, seemingly filming from his cellphone. His vertical video included text reading “Go to Yeezy.com.”

“So what’s up, guys,” Ye said. “I spent, like, all the money for the commercial, um, on these new teeth. So, once again I had to shoot it on the iPhone. Um, um, um, go to Yeezy.com.”

The ad garnered little attention during the game, having aired on three stations owned and operated by Fox—in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Atlanta—and on a few other Fox affiliates run by different operators, such as in St. Louis. A national ad during this Super Bowl cost $8 million for a 30-second spot, but local ads can cost far less, running into the six figures for major markets, according to Variety.

By Monday, social media had erupted over the commercial, because Yeezy.com was selling only one item: a white T-shirt with a black swastika logo, for $20.

(Update, Feb. 13, 4:54 p.m. Eastern: The rapper’s wife is leaving him over the shirts. Multiple reports surfaced Thursday that West and Bianca Censori, the Australian architect he married in 2023, are getting divorced. “She’s had enough. The swastika shirt was the last straw,” a source told the New York Post. “She told him that’s not who she is, and that she can’t be associated with that.” West reportedly responded that “he’s selling those shirts.” Our original story continues below.)

E-commerce company Shopify had killed the site by Tuesday. Visitors to Yeezy.com now receive a message that reads “this store is unavailable.”

“All merchants are responsible for following the rules of our platform,” a spokesperson for Shopify told Front Office Sports. “This merchant did not engage in authentic commerce practices and violated our terms, so we removed them from Shopify.”

But even the brief time the site was up raises several questions. Chief among them:

How did a website selling swastika merch air an ad during the biggest broadcast in U.S. history?

When the commercial was first pitched by the ad agency USIM, Yeezy.com was not selling anything with an alarming logo, a source close to the situation tells FOS. The clothes then on the website and the ad itself cleared vetting by the agency and Fox’s legal team, the source says, and stayed that way while the ad ran during the game.

Things changed after the game when Ye began posting on X/Twitter.

In the days leading up to the Super Bowl, Ye had posted a barrage of antisemitic content on the platform, including calling himself a Nazi and a racist, saying he loves Adolf Hitler, and sharing a photo of the swastika shirt that eventually appeared on his website. “I’ve wanted to make this tee shirt for years My greatest performance art piece thus far,” he said.

After a series of similar posts Sunday night, Ye deactivated his account. “I’m logging out of Twitter,” he said. “I appreciate Elon for allowing me to vent. It has been very cathartic to use the world as a sounding board.”

Twitter owner Elon Musk had banned Ye from the platform in late 2022 for violating the platform’s “rule against incitement to violence,” Musk said, but he was allowed back about eight months later. The offending tweets at the time included threats to go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.”

Late Sunday night, the site appears to have changed from its original clothes to the one swastika shirt. Some of the earliest social media posts reacting to the website are timestamped around midnight Eastern time.

Fox was unaware the website was going to change, and some execs even woke up to the news Monday morning, the source says.

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Fox did not comment.

In a statement, the NFL said it “strongly condemns any form of antisemitism,” does not sell Super Bowl ad time, and was not aware of the rapper buying the slots until after the ad aired.

Milo Yiannopoulos—still apparently representing West after alleging in August that a dentist had gotten the rapper addicted to nitrous gas—posted a statement late Sunday night. “Ye has deactivated his X account for the time being. Journalists with requests for comment about this or any other matter pertaining to Ye may direct them to my firm at my@trnt.la.” Multiple messages to that email address did not receive a reply.

Yiannopoulous, a far-right writer and editor who has repeatedly defended pedophilia in interviews, had previously quit another job with West in 2024 over alleged concerns about West launching a pornography division.

A representative for the ad agency USIM did not respond to requests for comment.

West’s agent, Daniel McCartney, wrote on Instagram on Monday night that he was dropping the rapper “due to his recent harmful and hateful remarks.” West first began praising Hitler publicly in 2022, and had reportedly made antisemitic comments behind closed doors for years previously.

A representative for the Federal Trade Commission said it mainly handles advertising issues related to “fraud and deception,” doesn’t “have jurisdiction over common carriers like television networks,” and deferred to the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC did not respond to requests for comment.

Ye has reclaimed full ownership over his Yeezy branding following his official split with Adidas, announced by his former partner in October.

Kanye’s Recent Ads

Ye ran a local Super Bowl ad last year, which was also shot on his iPhone. (That’s why he said he had to “once again” film on his phone.)

“Hey y’all this is Ye, and this is my commercial,” the rapper said from a moving vehicle. “And since we spent all the money on the commercial spot, we actually didn’t spend any money on the actual commercial. But the idea is I want you to go to Yeezy.com, Y-E-E-Z-Y dot com, and Imma write it at the bottom of the screen, and I got some shoes, and mmmm, that’s it.” Though the rapper had said as early as 2022 that he “loves Hitler” and falsely credited the German dictator with inventing highways and microphones, Yeezy.com was not selling Nazi merchandise at the time.

The rapper also ran a commercial earlier this month during the Grammy Awards, which was outshined by his appearance on the red carpet alongside his wife, Bianca Censori, wearing a transparent dress. The commercial promoted different products like hoodies, sweatpants, and shoes that were being sold on Yeezy.com. None of them contained swastikas.