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Gigi Hadid calls Kanye West a ‘bully’ amid fashion controversy

Hadid stepped in after Ye lashed out at a Vogue fashion editor who criticized the "White Lives Matter" shirts in his new Yeezy collection.

Gigi Hadid called Kanye West a "bully and a joke" after the rapper and fashion designer, who now calls himself Ye, insulted Vogue editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson in a series of social media posts.

The "Gold Digger" rapper debuted his Yeezy Season 9 collection on Oct. 3 at a fashion show during Paris Fashion Week. Among the designs were controversial shirts emblazoned with the slogan "White Lives Matter." Ye himself wore one of the shirts to the show.

Gigi Hadid and Kanye
Model Gigi Hadid, left, called rapper and designer Kanye West, right, a "bully and a joke" after he insulted a Vogue editor who criticized the new "White Lives Matter" shirts in his latest Yeezy fashion collection.Julien De Rosa / Edward Berthelot / Getty Images

Karefa-Johnson posted a video from the show as an Instagram story on Oct. 3 that showed a young person of color modeling one of the shirts. "Here come the bulls----," Karefa-Johnson wrote atop the footage.

"I'm fuming ... collecting my thoughts ...dm for my working thesis. Indefensible behavior," she added.

Karefa-Johnson included screenshots of a text conversation with a friend, which found her further critiquing Ye's collection, which she called "hugely irresponsible."

"It didn’t land and it was deeply offensive, violent, and dangerous," she wrote over one of the screenshots.

Ye responded to Karefa-Johnson's critiques by posting multiple since-deleted images of the editor, seen by TODAY, on his official Instagram page, where he insulted her style choices. "This is not a fashion person You speak on Ye Ima speak on you Ask Trevor Noah," the rapper wrote alongside one since-deleted photo of Karefa-Johnson.

That's when supermodel Hadid stepped in to call out Ye's behavior.

"You wish u had a percentage of her intellect. You have no idea haha," wrote Hadid in a since-deleted comment on Ye's Instagram page viewed by TODAY.

"If there’s actually a point to any of your s---. She might be the only person that could save u," continued Hadid. "As if the 'honor' of being invited to your show should keep someone from giving their opinion? Lol. You’re a bully and a joke."

Gigi Hadid called out Ye's behavior in a since-deleted comment on the rapper and designer's Instagram page.
Gigi Hadid called out Ye's behavior in a since-deleted comment on the rapper and designer's Instagram page.@kanyewest via Instagram

Hadid's comment was made on a post showing a screengrab of a text message from someone named Mowalola — likely Mowalola Ogunlesi, the former fashion designer behind Yeezy Gap — who suggested having a "real conversation" about the shirt with "that writer." TODAY has not confirmed that the text messages originated from Ogunlesi.

Fashion editor Karefa-Johnson later followed up by posting a message to followers about Ye’s show.

Karefa-Johnson called West's fashion collection "incredibly irresponsible" in a message to her followers.
Karefa-Johnson called West's fashion collection "incredibly irresponsible" in a message to her followers. @gabriellaak_j via Instagram

In her message, which she posted in her Instagram stories, Karefa-Johnson called out "the incredibly irresponsible and dangerous act of sending ‘W*** Lives Matter’ T-shirts down a runway."

"The tshirts this man conceived, produced, and shared with the world are pure violence. There is no excuse, there is no art here," she wrote. "I do think if you asked Kanye, he’d say there was art, and revolution, and all of the things in that t-shirt. There isn’t."

She added, "As we work through the trauma of this moment, especially those of us who suffered in that room, let’s have some grace for one another."