Beyoncé is out here making sure that the teams she works with are representing her properly, and that means being diverse.
Nick DePaula, of ESPN and Nice Kicks, sat down on ESPN’s ‘The Jump’ to discuss Beyoncé’s new signature sneaker deal with Adidas. He spoke of an interesting story that he heard about a time where Beyoncé walked out of a meeting with Reebok because their team did not consist of any black people.
He said:
“Throughout this process over the last year or two, she had discussed with Under Armour, with Reebok as well, Jordan [at Nike] at one point was interested in maybe partnering with her. She had a meeting at Reebok and they had a whole presentation of everything, potential products, how this could all look, and she kind of took a step back and said, ‘Is this the team that will be working on my product?’
Somebody said, ‘Yes,’ and she said, ‘Nobody in this room reflects by background, my skin color and where I’m from and what I want to do.’ So she took a step back and left and then it did not come to terms.
For her, it really goes beyond that. It’s not just about putting her name on a shoe and here’s the new Adidas Beyonce 1, or whatever they end up calling it. It’s about having an imprint on the company and an impact in terms of diversity.”
This is about Beyoncé so you should watch it but also @NickDePaula tells a really interesting story of why Beyoncé walked out of her meeting with the Reebok people and ended up signing with the adidas side of the brand instead.
Representation, baby. pic.twitter.com/hE6R3Z4pm9— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) April 5, 2019
