US model Bella Hadid has said she is “shocked”, “upset” and “disappointed” at the Adidas campaign in which she was featured that evoked memories of the terrorist attack that killed Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Hadid – who is half-Palestinian – was initially featured in the German sportswear’s advertisement campaign for its SL72 running shoe, which paid homage to the Munich games after its release earlier in July. At those Olympics, the Palestinian militant group known as Black September murdered 11 Israeli competitors as well as one German police officer.
The 27-year-old Hadid and Adidas were both met swiftly with public backlash, including accusations of antisemitism.
“Guess who the face of their campaign is?” the official X account for Israel posted. “Bella Hadid, a half-Palestinian model who has a history of spreading antisemitism and calling for violence against Israelis and Jews.”
“For Adidas to pick a vocal anti-Israel model to recall this dark Olympics is either a massive oversight or intentionally inflammatory,” the American Jewish Committee wrote on X. “Neither is acceptable.”
Hadid in the past has spoken out against Israel’s occupation of Palestine as well as the Israeli military’s onslaught in Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’s 7 October attacks. She has repeatedly refuted accusations that she is antisemitic.
Nonetheless, Adidas pulled the ad with Hadid and pledged to revise the remainder of the SL72 marketing campaign, saying the company did not intend to make any connections “to tragic historical events”.
And late Monday, Hadid joined the chorus of people criticizing Adidas.
“I am shocked, I am upset, and I am disappointed in the lack of sensitivity that went into this campaign,” Hadid wrote in a statement posted on Instagram.
Hadid, who was born in 1996, said she had never learned about “the historical connection to the atrocious events in 1972”.
She said she would “never knowingly engage with any art or work that is linked to a horrific tragedy of any kind”.
“My team should have known,” Hadid added. “Adidas should have known, and I should have done more research so that I too would have known and understood, and spoken up.”
Meanwhile, Hadid’s supporters have accused Adidas of racism for linking Hadid to terrorism because of her ethnic background. And many pro-Palestinian activists have urged people to boycott Adidas.
Adidas on 21 July also publicly apologized to Hadid and others who participated in the botched campaign, saying the company “made an unintentional mistake” and expressing regret “for any negative impact”.