Adidas said Friday it had dropped vocal pro-Palestinian model Bella Hadid from an advertising campaign for retro sneakers referencing the 1972 Munich Olympics, which were overshadowed by a massacre of Israeli athletes.
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.
Eleven Israeli athletes and a German police officer were killed at the 1972 Munich Games after gunmen from the Palestinian Black September group broke into the Olympic village and took them hostage.
Hadid, who was born in the US but has Palestinian roots through her father, has been vocal about her support for Palestinian rights since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 triggered the war in Gaza.
According to Agence France Presse, Adidas said it would be "revising the remainder of the campaign" with immediate effect.
"We are conscious that connections have been made to tragic historical events -- though these are completely unintentional -- and we apologize for any upset or distress caused," the company said in a statement sent to AFP on Friday.
A spokeswoman confirmed that Hadid had been removed from the campaign, which notes that the shoes were first introduced in 1972 but never mentions the attack on the Israeli athletes.
Pictures of the American model wearing the retro Adidas shoes had caused an outcry among pro-Israeli groups.
"Guess who the face of the campaign is? Bella Hadid, a model with Palestinian roots who has spread anti-Semitism in the past and incited violence against Israelis and Jews," the Israeli embassy in Germany wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday.
