Celebrity brands and businesses are not exempt from facing massive public scrutiny. In many ways, people who are well-known in the public eye also have the added pressure of keeping their reputation on the line. While some celebrity businesses and endorsements fail for similar reasons to any other endeavor, others make headlines and are threatened for much more controversial reasons.
If anything can be learned from the following celebrity brands that came under controversy, launching a new product line amidst catastrophic world events, marketing edible skincare with sexy-sounding names to young girls, making false health claims that can't be backed by science, or culturally appropriating a demographic to promote a product generally will come with some heavy consequences.
The Celebrity Brand: Goop, a "modern lifestyle brand" featuring health advice, travel tips, and clean living products
The Controversy: Gwyneth Paltrow's company has come under fire numerous times since she first launched Goop in 2008. Though the website claims that the company tries alternative products and procedures first so that fans can make informed decisions regarding their own health, many of the reviewed practices and products in the online store were untested and not approved by actual health professionals.
Among the products that drew negative attention to the brand was an egg-shaped stone intended for vaginal use, with the website claiming the treatment would balance hormones, improve bladder control, and help regulate menstrual cycles. The health claims were unfounded, as were Gwyneth Paltrow's insistence that a treatment called bee sting therapy could help reduce inflammation and scarring on the body in 2016. Two years later, the BBC reported that a woman had died from the bee acupuncture procedure.
The company's supporters may have been impressed with Paltrow's controversial candle named “This Smells Like My Vagina,” (it sold out shortly after it was added to the website as it drew unflattering attention from national news outlets), but many who traveled to London for Goop's conference in 2019 also eventually found issue with the way the Iron Man actress ran her business. Attendees complained about the $1,300 hotel price, calling Paltrow a “f**king extortionist” as they revealed the less-than satisfactory experience they endured at the event. Instead of being a health and wellness summit, many felt Goop only used the time allotted for the event to further promote and sell its products. One attendee lamented:
Gwyneth acts like she’s a health goddess, but actually she’s a pretentious, greedy extortionist… She had a ton of security. She was unapproachable. She did the minimum — a few fireside chats with Twiggy and Penelope Cruz, then she put on her Birkenstocks and snuck out.
A representative from the company retorted that Paltrow had spent nearly half of each day with her fans and that the total value of the conference reached $8,000.
In another instance, Paltrow revealed her ideal daily food intake, which included a practice of drinking coffee for breakfast, bone broth for lunch, and then eating mostly vegetables for dinner. Instead of apologizing or correcting the comments which seemed to promote disordered eating, Paltrow doubled-down by claiming that her diet had played a role in helping her heal her long-Covid symptoms.
Other controversial products and practices the website has offered include vibrators, bio-frequency stickers that supposedly balance the body's energies with the same material that NASA uses for its space suits (a later statement from NASA revealed that the claims were untrue), a “This Smells Like My Orgasm Candle” that followed the “This Smells Like My Vagina” release, and vaginal steaming - a process that the Goop creative team claimed helped to cleanse the uterus.
Problematic?- Photo:
The Celebrity Brand: Paula's Home Cooking and Paula's Best Dishes, along with several other cooking shows, restaurants, a kitchenware line, her own television network, and a magazine, Cooking With Paula Deen
The Controversy: For years, Paula Deen dominated the market when it came to southern cuisine. However, in 2013, Lisa Jackson, a former restaurant manager who worked for the queen of southern food, filed a suit against Deen, accusing her of using racist language and making inappropriate sexually implied comments to her staff. The court documents were later made public, with Deen confessing to having used the N-word.
Dora Charles, a former chef who worked for her at Lady and Sons (the restaurant that helped her earn her claim to fame and wealth), revealed her workplace was founded on racist stereotypes and actions.
Charles worked for Deen for 22 years, where she created recipes, trained the staff, and helped to set Deen's business in motion. Deen referred to Charles as her “soul sister,” but Charles claimed her career at the restaurant was steeped in racism.
According to Charles, Deen requested that an employee “dress in an old-style Aunt Jemima outfit” while making hoecakes in front of the restaurant's patrons. Additionally, Deen asked Charles to ring a dinner bell at the opening of each day, to which Charles responded:
I said "I'm not ringing no bell… That's a symbol to me of what we used to do back in the day [before the abolition of slavery].
Though Charles refused, another Black employee, Ineata Jones, agreed. Despite promising to share the wealth and success cultivated from the venture with Charles, Deen only paid Charles $7 an hour. According to the former employee:
[Deen said]: “Stick with me, Dora, and I promise you one day if I get rich you'll get rich.”… I'm not trying to portray that she is a bad person… I'm just trying to put my story out there that she didn't treat me fairly and I was her soul sister.
In response, Deen's publicists retaliated:
Fundamentally Dora's complaint is not about race but about money. It is about an employee that despite over 20 years of generosity feels that she still deserves yet even more financial support from Paula Deen.
Problematic?The Celebrity Brand: Skims (formerly named Kimono), a shapewear and clothing line
The Controversy: Kim Kardashian initially launched her shapewear brand in 2019 under the name “Kimono,” a word she claimed was in line with two previous business ventures, Kimoji and KKW Beauty. Still, the reality star also acknowledged the line was “a nod to the beauty and detail that goes into a garment” and planned to trademark the brand, causing outrage over her attempts to claim sole rights to a word traditionally used to describe a staple of Japanese wardrobe culture for hundreds of years.
Kardashian made a statement regarding the brand, hoping to clarify the intentions behind her choice, remarking:
Filing a trademark is a source identifier that will allow me to use the word for my shapewear and intimates line but does not preclude or restrict anyone, in this instance, from making kimonos or using the word kimono in reference to the traditional garment…
However, her intentions were overshadowed by the public anger shared through social media and media outlets. Additionally, the marketing campaign featured women wearing the lingerie, which many felt was an insult to the modest traditional style of a Japanese kimono.
It wasn't long before the hashtag “#KimOhNo” was trending on X (then Twitter), and a petition was filed on Change.org demanding that Kardashian rename the line. Ultimately, the star chose to rename the brand “Skims.”
Problematic?- Photo:
- Mike Kaplan
- Wikimedia Commons
- Public domain
The Celebrity Brand: Dessert Beauty, a line of edible cosmetics and skincare products
The Controversy: Hoping to capitalize on her sex appeal, Jessica Simpson launched an entirely edible beauty line in 2004. Though the campaign ads were targeted more toward young girls, the sultry marketing strategy included edible moisturizers, body butters, lip glosses, bubble bath, shampoo, blush, and perfumes.
If Simpson's own sudden illness she contracted after eating mounds of her own “icing” for the brand's photoshoot was a bad omen, the singer and Dessert Beauty representatives neglected to heed the warning. Soon after the products launched on the market, several alarming lawsuits were filed. One girl contracted a yeast infection after using Simpson's edible Butterscotch Toffee Body Wash, and another reported that she was followed by a swarm of bees after using the Deliciously Kissable Belly Button Love Potion Fragrance.
The negative attention wasn't only generated by customers who were unhappy with the Dessert Beauty products. Despite the controversial and age-inappropriate names like “Juicy” and “Creamy,” it was the Deliciously Kissable Belly Botton Love Potion fragrance that made headlines. Precious Metal guitarist Mara Fox sued Simpson for using “love potion,” a name she had previously given to a fragrance featured in her own line of products. Dessert Beauty argued that the term “love potion” was a common descriptor that couldn't be copyrighted, and Fox eventually lost the suit. Still, the damage to the company was done, and the line was discontinued.
Problematic?- Photo:
The Celebrity Brand: Real American Beer
The Controversy: Shortly before the 2024 Presidential Election, Hulk Hogan was hyping a crowd up to promote his latest business adventure, a beer company. After getting the crowd with some WWE-style chanting, the former wrestler turned the frenzy into a political statement. In a video retrieved by TMZ Sports, Hogan could be heard mocking the Democratic Presidential hopeful, Kamala Harris:
You want me to bodyslam somebody? You want me to bodyslam Kamala Harris? I said do you want me to bodyslam Kamala Harris? You want me to drop the leg on Kamala?…
Is Kamala a chameleon? Is she Indian?
Seeming to have realized his mistake, he quickly added:
I'm gonna get heat for that one, brother. That was not me. That was the beers talking.
Still, his insistence that his inebriated state caused the hateful comments wasn't enough to keep the video from drawing attention from national news outlets.
Problematic?- Photo:
- United States Navy
- Wikimedia Commons
- Public domain
The Celebrity Brand: O2, an oxygen bar
The Controversy: Woody Harrelson set out to create the experience of a healthier bar and restaurant in LA in 1999. Instead of offering guests alcoholic beverages as a form of entertainment, patrons of O2 had the option to sit with different scent-infused oxygen masks for 20 minutes while they dined on healthy fare. With the motto “Eat--Drink--Breathe--Love,” media initially considered the business plan a breath of fresh air.
However, a controversy around O2 and similar bars struck when health professionals revealed that there's no real health benefit to having extra air pumped into a person's lungs for any length of time and that the practice could have unhealthy side effects.
Dr. Norman Edelman, consultant for scientific affairs with the American Lung Association and vice president for health sciences at Stony Brook University in New York, reported:
Based on our understanding of the science, it's very hard to believe that the oxygen used in oxygen bars can be of any benefit… And we also want to caution people that breathing pure oxygen for extended periods of time can cause respiratory problems.
Additionally, doctors noted that a person's lungs can only withhold a certain amount of oxygen at one time. Any breathed air beyond that exits the lungs as quickly as it enters, making oxygen bars relatively pointless.
Within barely a year after opening, Harrelson closed the bar's doors for good.
Problematic?- Photo:
