Bella Hadid breaks her silence on controversial adidas campaign

As we told you last week, adidas released the new campaign for the SL 72 OG silhouette, initially designed for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. The face of the campaign was Bella Hadid, the Palestinian-American model, who has openly taken a stand for the Palestinian people against the Israeli blockade. The Israeli community was on fire with this campaign, but why?

It all goes back to the fact that during the 1972 Olympic Games, eight members of the Palestinian militant organisation Black September infiltrated the Olympic Village, killed two members of the Israeli Olympic team and took nine other people hostage. Those nine were later killed. It has since become known as the Munich massacre. The Israeli community saw the choice of Bella Hadid as a statement of intent by adidas.

The sports brand was quick to apologise and delete the campaign from all its platforms: ‘We are aware that connections have been made to tragic historical events – albeit entirely unintentional – and we apologise for any upset or distress caused. We believe in sport as a unifying force around the world and will continue to strive to champion diversity and equality in everything we do.’

Bella Hadid also removed the campaign from her social media and after a few weeks of silence, the model has shared a statement on Instagram: ‘For those who don’t know my heart, I want to make sure you hear directly from me about my recent campaign with adidas’. The model expressed that she would ‘never knowingly involve myself in any art or work that is linked to a horrible tragedy of any kind’.

‘Prior to the launch of the campaign, I was unaware of the historical connection to the atrocious events of 1972. I am shocked, upset and disappointed by the lack of sensitivity that went into this campaign.’ Bella further explained, ‘If I had been informed, from the bottom of my heart, I would never have participated.’

‘My team should have known about it, adidas should have known about it and I should have done more research so I could have known about it and understood it too and been able to speak out about it.’ The model added that ‘I will always speak out about what I think is wrong. While everyone’s intentions were to do something positive and bring people together through art, the collective lack of understanding on all sides undermined the process.’

‘I do not believe in hate in any form, including anti-Semitism,’ Hadid continued, adding: ’That I will never waver and I stand by that statement to the fullest.’

What happened between adidas and Bella Hadid?