LOS ANGELES, CA — Super Bowl champion and three NFL Defensive Player of the Year Aaron Donald released a statement on Tuesday that stated he and his wife Erica are no longer apart of Donda Sports, and don’t agree with the racially insensitive statements from Kanye West. The couple also said in statement they released on Twitter, “We do not feel our beliefs, voices and actions belong anywhere near a space that misrepresents and oppresses people of any background, ethnicity or race.“
The Rams 102 career sack leader faced quite possibly his toughest opponent on Thursday, just days before he and the team take on the San Francisco 49ers. Donald prepared to answer questions from the Los Angeles media regarding his decision to divorce himself away from West and Donda Sports completely.
“I can’t speak for him (Kanye), as far as what’s going in my world and my circle with my family and our beliefs and what we believe in and we decided to part ways and I don’t want to speak for nobody else,” Donald explained.
Donald appeared to have parted ways after the announcement that Adidas (the company West partnered with), and large shoe chain Footlocker would no longer conduct business with the music producer. Donald and his wife made the huge announce several months ago regarding partnering with West and his Donda Academy school, which too many was a surprise. Especially since West made very disrespectful and insensitive comments regarding the Black community, in saying publicly that slavery was a choice for Black ancestors, disrespected the historic accomplishments of Harriett Tubman, and most recently spoke lies and made inflammatory comments regarding the murder of George Floyd. With hindsight being his guide, what allowed Donald to align himself with West in the first place?
“I really don’t want to speak on that because I kind of put it out,” Donald said. “Whatever we put out on Tuesday, it’s just a situation where a lot of things were going on that I felt weren’t in the best interest of my family or what we got going on and what we believe in, so I think it was best for us to just go our separate ways.”
For Donald parting ways with West and Donda Sports wasn’t a difficult decision but the best one for him moving forward. Lessons learned as he plans to be more aware of the future business agreements he and his wife enter in to in the future. His wife Erica is the mastermind behind his marketing, and Donald has had some significant endorsements since becoming a Super Bowl champion. One bit of advice Donald mentioned for him was the ability to recognize that things don’t allows go as you planned them.
“You never know what can happen in the future. You create partnerships to hopefully build great things and do some great stuff, but sometimes things don’t work out how you think. That’s a part of life, not just business.”
Donald and the Los Angeles Rams face their NFC West nemesis in the 49ers on Sunday at SoFi Stadium at 1:25PM PT.
