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Adidas has pulled advertising images showing Bella Hadid promoting a sports shoe first launched in the year of the 1972 Munich Olympics after a public outcry about using the US fashion model, who has been accused of antisemitism by the Israeli government.
Hadid, whose family has roots in Palestine, has in the past been criticised by the Israeli government for allegedly chanting “From the river to the Sea — Palestine will be free”, a controversial slogan that it said is used by those who call for the elimination of Israel.
The 27-year-old model, who has been an Adidas brand ambassador for some time, was one of several celebrities promoting a relaunch of the Adidas SL 72 shoe, which was first introduced in the year of the Munich Olympic Games where 11 members of the Israeli team were killed in an attack by pro-Palestine militants.
Israel’s embassy in Germany and pro-Jewish groups such as StopAntisemitism criticised Adidas on social media site X over the campaign, pointing to the 1972 massacre.
Adidas told the Financial Times on Friday that it was “revising the remainder of the campaign” without disclosing details about its changes. Campaign images showing Hadid promoting the SL 72 have disappeared from social media. Other images showing Adidas brand ambassadors including French footballer Jules Koundé, US rapper A$AP Nast and Chinese model Sabrina Lan were still online.
“We are conscious that connections have been made to tragic historical events — though these are completely unintentional — and we apologize for any upset or distress caused,” Adidas said in a statement.
The SL 72, originally launched as a lightweight running shoe in 1972, is one of several models that underpin Adidas’s commercial revival over the past year as the brand attempts to move on from a crisis involving US rapper Kanye West.
It raised its profit guidance for the second time this week and its shares have outperformed US rival Nike this year as new versions of legacy models such as the Samba and the Gazelle have turned into fashion icons.
Adidas ditched its highly successful partnership with West in 2022 over a series of antisemitic remarks, suffering millions of euros in losses from lost sales of its fast-growing and high-margin brand Yeezy. Chief executive Bjørn Gulden later made headlines when he claimed in a podcast that West — also known as Ye — “did not mean what he said” and was not “a bad person”.
Gulden later apologised for his remarks, stressing that he did not want to defend West’s behaviour. Adidas has promised to donate parts of the proceeds generated from its remaining stock of Yeezy shoes to groups that fight antisemitism and hate speech.
A modelling agency representing Hadid did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In October 2022, in an apparent response to controversial remarks by West, she wrote that “there are people that I love in the world, people that happen to be Jewish, that feel scared by the words that have been used . . . To my Jewish loved ones, the Jewish communities worldwide, I am here to say that you belong, you are worthy and your right as a human being is to be ALIVE. Just the same as any other race, religion, shape or size.”
