Racism, crowd crushes, and shocking allegations
of abuse. How far is too far for the biggest brands in the world?
In 2021, Marilyn Manson came under fire after allegations of abuse from multiple women,
most notably ex-girlfriend Evan Rachel Wood. On her Instagram, the actress said that Manson
began grooming her when she was a teenager and abused her for years. She said she lived in fear,
which prevented her from naming Manson before. However, that hadn't stopped
Wood from being vocal as a victim of abuse. She testified before Congress in 2018 and
described in graphic detail her experience of sexual assault by an unnamed assailant.
"I thought I was the only human who experienced this,
and I carried so much guilt and confusion about my response to the abuse."
After her Instagram post, at least four other women came forward,
also naming Manson as their abuser. Former personal assistant Ashley Walters said he
psychologically abused her, and has since suffered PTSD.
As a result, Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, was cut from the AMC Network show
Creepshow, on which he had made an appearance. CAA said they were dropping him as a client,
and Loma Vista Recordings announced that they were no longer working with him. California
state senator Susan Rubio then urged the FBI to begin an investigation into Manson.
After the blowback, Manson made his own Instagram post, telling followers that the
allegations were untrue and maintaining that his relationships were consensual.
DaBaby's reputation took an uncertain turn at Rolling Loud Miami 2021,
the ultimate hip-hop music festival. During his set on July 25th, the rapper made a series of
graphic and homophobic statements. Simply put, DaBaby disinvited gay people in the
audience from holding their cellphones or lighters in the air. He also made a
number of controversial remarks about HIV and AIDS that degraded and blamed the victims of
such diseases. The backlash was swift, but DaBaby attempted to defend himself with more
homophobic remarks on his Instagram stories. He made multiple attempts to apologize later on,
notably addressing those afflicted with HIV and AIDS, but they fell short with the public.
DaBaby received criticism from a number of his collaborators,
while fashion brand BoohooMAN dropped its partnership with the star — only a
month after his line was released. After being dropped from festivals Lollapalooza
and New York City's Governor's Ball, he finally issued a formal apology.
Travis Scott is no stranger to dangerous concert incidents. In 2015,
Scott told fans to climb the barricades at Lollapalooza, leading to charges of
reckless conduct. A few years later, he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after
encouraging people to rush the stage at an Arkansas concert. Not even a year later,
a fan sued Scott after an incident at a different concert led to him being paralyzed.
That same chaos followed at Scott's November 2021 Astroworld Music Festival in Houston, Texas.
Before the crowd surge that resulted in the deaths of 10 people, festival goers recalled feeling a
frenzied energy in the venue. The crowds were too thick to bear, and attendees soon became violent.
"I was getting winded, I was using all the energy I had left in me,
and I came to the point where I was accepting my death."
Since Scott had a history of encouraging dangerous behavior at his concerts,
many were willing to hold him accountable.
Scott was hardly the only person to blame, though. The concert's sponsor waited half an hour to
shut down the event after the casualties began occurring. Scott afterward expressed sympathy
and regret, but the damage was already done. Most notably, the public and media criticized him for
continuing despite spotting an ambulance in the crowd. A Change.org petition calling for Scott's
ousting from Goldenvoice concerts, which sponsors Coachella, garnered 60,000 signatures, and,
in December, Coachella announced that Scott had been removed from the lineup.
On March 3rd, 1989, Madonna released a controversial and boundary-pushing
music video for her song, "Like a Prayer. The video depicted stigmata on Madonna's hands, an
interracial couple, burning crosses, and a number of moments of overt sexuality — unsurprisingly,
the video courted more than a little bit of controversy. By then, Madonna had reached
superstar status, and the video shocked people all over the world. The Vatican
condemned it and later tried to block her concert in Italy.
But the real scandal involved her collaboration with Pepsi-Cola. The company had given Madonna
more than $5 million for a deal that included a commercial using the song
"Like a Prayer." Although it didn't use the controversial imagery from the music video,
the close association with "Like a Prayer" led to boycotts against Pepsi,
with powerful religious groups encouraging their followers to avoid its products.
The furor lasted until the soda company dropped the ad, having aired it only twice.
In 2013, Lil Wayne appeared on Future's remix "Karate Chop." But before the album
was released officially, the song was leaked along with a disturbing lyric by Lil Wayne,
in which the rapper made a crude and sexual remark — using the tragic 1955
beating of teenager Emmett Till as a metaphor.
While on a trip to Mississippi, Till had allegedly whistled at a white woman, which prompted
bystanders to murder him and dump his body in a river. The white men accused were acquitted,
but Till's death spurred support for civil rights and made him a tragic martyr of the movement.
A representative for Till's family reached out to Lil Wayne's management group, and Epic Records,
the company responsible for the album, submitted an apology and changed the lyrics.
Lil Wayne then wrote an open statement to the family and paid tribute to Till specifically.
The Till family, however, noted that Lil Wayne's statement fell short of an actual apology. It
didn't end there, either: soda brand Mountain Dew then dropped their endorsement deal with
the rapper. Lil Wayne's publicist said this separation came down to creative differences,
but PepsiCo later confirmed it was due to the star's offensive lyrics. And this wouldn't
be the last time Lil Wayne would court controversy among civil rights activists,
either. In 2016, speaking about the Black Lives Matter movement, he said:
"I don't feel connected to a damn thing that ain't
got nothin' to do with me. If you do, you crazier than s—."
The sportswear company Reebok faced problems with a troublesome client back in 2013 when rapper and
collaborator Rick Ross effectively endorsed date rape in the song "U.O.E.N.O." In a series
of lyrics, Ross describes tainting a woman's drink with ecstasy and, once she's mentally
incapacitated, sexually assaulting her. The song angered many people, and activists protested in
front of a Reebok in New York City. The rapper's plans to perform at Carleton University in
Ottawa were subsequently put at risk when students attempted to block the concert.
Ross didn't do himself many favors in the aftermath. He made two brief apologies on Twitter,
but because his statement suggested that fans had misinterpreted his lyrics, they
did nothing to dampen the outrage. It was then that Reebok ended their partnership with Ross,
stating that the way he had chosen to apologize had been insensitive.
In 2007, Akon came under fire after dancing inappropriately with a minor onstage during
a concert in Trinidad. Footage from the concert showed Akon imitating sexual movements with a
15-year-old girl. Akon later apologized to the girl, her family, and the public.
Akon was about to embark on a tour with Gwen Stefani, performing as the opening
act for her Sweet Escape tour, but its leading sponsor pulled the rug out from
under them. Verizon was expected to contribute $2 million to the tour,
along with additional marketing, but they decided to ax the deal after Akon's
controversial concert. The total value lost was estimated to be $3 million. Stefani's
manager expressed confusion on why Stefani was also being penalized for Akon's actions.
Verizon went a step further and cleared all its Akon-related products from its stores,
including ringtones and commercials featuring the rapper. The Sweet Escape
tour went on and the song on which Akon and Stefani had collaborated,
"The Sweet Escape," went on to reach No. 2 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart.
Country star Morgan Wallen found fame on the popular singing competition show The Voice,
which led to an impressive career with various No.1 country hits,
as well as an album that broke a record with 86 weeks on Billboard's Top 10. But Wallen nearly
lost all of this when TMZ released footage of the star using a racial slur in 2021.
Wallen promptly issued an apology, but within a day of the footage being made public,
his music was pulled from iHeartMedia. Cumulus Media and SiriusXM soon followed,
and Wallen's downfall only worsened from there. Country Music Television promised
to stop promoting his work and the Academy of Country Music banned him from the 2021
awards show. The biggest hit came when Big Loud Records suspended him indefinitely from the label.
Wallen issued another apology, in which he asked fans to refrain from defending him.
"Our actions matter, our words matter, and I just
wanna encourage anyone watching to please learn from my mistake."
His career seems to have survived the scandal, however. Despite the hit he took from online and
radio platforms, his album sales actually saw a boost. The same week the video was released,
Wallen's sales increased by 102%, while his songs topped Spotify's streaming charts.
Morrissey, the English singer and former frontman for The Smiths, has long been a controversial
figure in the music scene. In 2010, he told The Guardian that Chinese people were a "subspecies"
because of the reportedly poor treatment of animals in China. In 2018, he said that
London mayor Sadiq Khan, who is of Pakistani descent, couldn't speak English correctly.
The controversy escalated during a 2019 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,
when he wore a pin with a symbol of the far-right political party For Britain. A month later,
Morrissey confirmed his support for the party and said accusations of racism against
him were pointless since he believed the word "racist" has lost its potency. On top of that,
during the #MeToo wave, Morrissey openly wondered if the Kevin Spacey
and Harvey Weinstein victims deserved some blame for being sexually assaulted.
So it came as little surprise when he was dropped from his record label, BMG. However, the label,
which released three albums with Morrissey, didn't elaborate on reasons for the separation. Morrissey
didn't exactly take it well, either. He chalked up the split to BMG's desire for more diversity
and suggested that the announcement went well with the general bad vibes of the year 2020.
In early October 2022, Kanye West lit up an internet firestorm after being photographed in a
t-shirt with the slogan, White Lives Matter, which has been associated with white supremacist groups.
After several bizarre claims in the following months, including an accusation that LVMH CEO
Bernard Arnault had killed a fashion designer who died of cancer, West began
making antisemitic statements and promoting conspiracy theories. The first antisemitic post
led to his Instagram account being restricted by the platform, while the second led to his
Twitter account being suspended altogether. He then went on a hate speech tour of sorts,
spewing out false information about Jewish people on Tucker Carlson's FOX News show, the talk show
The Shop, and Chris Cuomo's NewsNation. On the show Drink Champs, West falsely claimed that
George Floyd died from fentanyl use, and used an ableist word to describe President Joe Biden.
West went on to lose his largest and most profitable business partners,
almost instantly going from a billionaire to a millionaire with an estimated $400 million
fortune. He lost partnerships with The Gap and Hollywood producer MRC,
while talent agency CAA dropped him as a client. The biggest hit came from Adidas,
a collaboration that had added $1.5 billion to West's net worth.