How can we understand the rise and fall of Kanye West?

SCIENCE NEWS FROM KRISTIANIA: Communication

Our research set out to examine this specific shift: the point at which repeated controversy becomes the dominant filter shaping all future coverage of an individual or a group. 

Kanye West’s 15-year trajectory across fashion and entertainment offered an ideal case. 

His career features global influence, blockbuster collaborations, and escalating crises that gradually reshaped not only his public image but also how journalists, partners, and stakeholders interpreted every subsequent story. We define this cumulative reputational drag as crisis history toxicity.

Crisis history is toxic

Working in two of the world’s most highly visible and crisis-prone industries, West illustrates both the upside and the vulnerability of celebrity-driven branding. 

To assess how crisis history accumulates, we analysed 40 major (see figure below) events and 938 media articles, coding for tone, crisis type, journalistic style, and whether coverage reflected value co-creation or co-destruction.

Our results show a clear pattern: a crisis history is toxic – the media tone becomes steadily more negative over time – even during positive brand moments. In short, when crisis history builds, the past reshapes the framing of the present. This effect is amplified by the fact that nearly all coverage is opinion-driven, not purely factual.

Most damaging when actions affected others

We also see a decisive shift in how crises are framed. Early incidents were treated as reputational issues; over time they increasingly became transgressions, signaling reduced media tolerance and greater blame attribution. 

The tipping point arrives in 2022, when incidents involving racist and antisemitic content triggered rapid termination of major partnerships. After this moment, co-destruction dominates the narrative.

Importantly, crisis toxicity spreads. While partner brands were generally covered more positively than West himself, tone toward them still correlated strongly with tone toward him – demonstrating real spillover risk for alliances in highly mediated sectors.

Finally, not all crises carry equal weight. West’s personal challenges had limited long-term impact. The most damaging events were those in which his actions affected others – whether consumers, communities, or corporate partners.

Industry takeaways

• Crisis patterns, not isolated events, determine long-term reputational risk.
• Transgressions – especially those harming others – drive the steepest declines.
• Brand partners absorb collateral damage when linked to crisis-prone figures.
• Even positive initiatives are reframed negatively once toxicity sets in.

While crisis history toxicity can ease over time, recovery is slow and contingent on the absence of further incidents. For brands operating in popular-culture and high media coverage driven markets, vigilance around partner behaviour and long-term crisis patterns is essential.

Text: Audra Diers-Lawson, professor, Kristiania University of Applied Sciences, and Sophie L. Johnson, researcher, Nottingham Trent University.

This text was first published on ScienceNorway.no on the 26th of February 2026 with the title "How can we understand the rise and fall of Kanye West?".

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