Kanye West is reportedly suing Walmart, who the YEEZY head has accused of selling numerous Foam Runner rip-offs on its site.
The fake YEEZY Foam Runners are priced between $25 and $30 (as opposed to the real version’s retail price of $80) and listed under names such as “Daeful Adult Children Summer Beach Shoes Foam Runner” and “Luxur Unisex Summer Beach Shoes Foam Runner.” The knockoffs look almost exactly like the adidas-produced version, however, they arrive in colorways that were not officially released.
YEEZY’s complaint states: “Walmart is flagrantly trading off of his and Yeezy brand’s popularity by offering for sale an imitation version of the Yeezy Foam Runner. The Yeezy brand is worth ‘billions’ of dollars, and the potential loss from the imitation shoes in the ‘hundreds of millions.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CQiEdYdNoQ6/
Walmart also released a statement, saying: “The product referenced in the complaint is not sold by Walmart, but rather by third party Marketplace sellers. We take allegations like this seriously and are reviewing the claim. We will respond in court as appropriate after we have been served with the complaint.”
Kanye West and Yeezy are suing Walmart over the Foam Runner knock offs pic.twitter.com/fSZnokVe0T
— Craig (@DebatingHipHop_) June 24, 2021
The YEEZY Foam Runner was originally released last year and has since become one of the brand’s most recognizable shoes — which says a lot considering the sometimes outlandish designs ’Ye and his team cook up.
At time of writing, product pages for some of fake Foam Runners are inaccessible, as it looks like Walmart has restricted access to the pages while it investigates.
Kanye and Walmart have a history of legal battles, as this lawsuit follows a trademark dispute between ’Ye and Walmart over a sunray logo, which Kanye intended to use for his brand. Read more about that lawsuit here.