Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, used a Super Bowl commercial on Sunday night to send people to his website as it sells T-shirts emblazoned with a swastika, the symbol of Nazi Germany which is still used by modern-day far-right extremists.
The white T-shirts have a black swastika on the front and were the only items for sale on the front page of yeezy.com as of Monday morning. No text or explanation accompanied the item, just the letters “HH-01.” They are available for $20.
The Super Bowl ad — which was not shown nationally but, according to multiple reports, was at least seen in the Los Angeles area — shows Ye in a dentist’s chair apparently undergoing treatment.
“So what’s up, guys? I spent, like, all the money for the commercial on these new teeth,” he said. “So once again, I had to shoot it on the iPhone. Um, um, um, go to yeezy.com.” The shirts were not mentioned in the ad.
Milo Yiannopoulos, who acts as a spokesperson for Ye, told NBC News in an emailed statement: “Ye is an intergenerational artist and icon who continues to redefine the limits of creativity and free expression. He has deactivated his X account for the time being.”
Yiannopoulos did not respond to a question about the shirts.
The news comes as Ye’s X account, where he had 33 million followers and had been posting a string of highly offensive antisemitic messages in recent days, has been deactivated.
The Anti-Defamation League posted a statement Monday describing the shirt sales as further proof of Ye’s antisemitism. The organization, which was formed to combat anti-Jewish bigotry and discrimination, reiterated that the swastika was “adopted by Hitler as the primary emblem of the Nazis.”
“It galvanized his followers in the 20th century and continues to threaten and instill fear in those targeted by antisemitism and white supremacy,” the ADL said. “If that wasn’t enough, the t-shirt is labeled on Kanye’s website as ‘HH-01,’ which is code for ‘Heil Hitler.'”
