Bella Hadid said mulling legal action after Adidas dropped her from 1972 Olympic shoe ad
Sportswear giant removed Palestinian-American supermodel, a harsh critic of Israel, from ad campaign for retro sneakers from Munich Games, where terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes
Palestinian-American supermodel Bella Hadid has retained lawyers after Adidas dropped her from a campaign to advertise retro sneakers from the 1972 Munich Olympics, where a Palestinian terror group killed 11 Israeli athletes, celebrity news site TMZ reported.
Hadid, who was born in the United States but has Palestinian roots through her father, has been harshly critical of Israel in her activism on behalf of Palestinians since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 triggered the war in Gaza. She has accused Israel of genocide in Gaza — an allegation rejected as unfounded by Israel — and been accused by Israel and US Jewish groups of antisemitism.
Unnamed sources told TMZ Saturday that Hadid is looking to take action for what the site called Adidas’s “lack of public accountability.”
The website said that Hadid is still under contract with Adidas, and that she is upset that the shoemaker would run a campaign so likely to be associated with the violence at the 1972 Games.
“Sounds like Bella’s telling people in her orbit she didn’t know what she was getting herself into when she signed on… and, she’s holding Adidas responsible for that,” TMZ said.
The German sportswear giant recently relaunched the SL72, a shoe first showcased by athletes at the 1972 Olympics, as part of a series reviving old classic sneakers, and recruited Hadid as a model for the footwear.
Various Jewish and pro-Israel leaders and institutions said Hadid was an inappropriate choice to represent a sneaker associated with those Games.
At the 1972 Munich Olympics, eight members of the Palestinian terror group Black September broke into the Israeli Olympic team’s residence, immediately killing one coach and one member of the weightlifting team, and taking nine more Israeli team members hostage. All were killed during a botched rescue operation, as was a West German police officer.
The massacre was commemorated at the Olympics for the first time at the 2020 Games, held in 2021. Due to security concerns, this year’s commemorations in Paris are reportedly set to be held in an undisclosed location.
Hadid has taken part in several pro-Palestinian demonstrations amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas terror group.
That war began on October 7 of last year, when thousands of terrorists invaded southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages. Israel responded with an offensive in the Gaza Strip to destroy Hamas, return the hostages, and prevent Gaza from posing a security threat to Israel.
Hadid, whose father was born in Nazareth, has described Israel’s offensive as a “genocide,” and occasionally shared misinformation about the Israel-Hamas war.
She has also received criticism for sharing social media posts downplaying the experiences of the Israelis held hostage in Gaza.
Pictures of the American model wearing the retro Adidas shoes had caused an outcry among pro-Israeli and Jewish groups.
“Guess who the face of the campaign is? Bella Hadid, a model with Palestinian roots who has spread antisemitism in the past and incited violence against Israelis and Jews,” the Israeli embassy in Germany wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday.
“How can Adidas now claim that the reference [to the events in Munich] was ‘completely unintentional’?” Ron Prosor, Israel’s ambassador to Germany, said in response to the company’s climbdown.
The American Jewish Committee had also condemned Haddid’s role in the Adidas campaign on X, calling it an “egregious error.”
“For Adidas to pick a vocal anti-Israel model to recall this dark Olympics is either a massive oversight or intentionally inflammatory,” the AJC wrote. “Neither is acceptable.”
JTA contributed to this report.
