‘Would you rather slap Rihanna or punch Chris Brown?’ That’s the distasteful advert people flipping through Snapchat’s stories were confronted with. The bobbing images referenced Brown and Rihanna’s incident back in 2009, which saw the rapper convicted for domestic abuse.
Among the outraged reactions on Twitter were Chelsea Clinton (daughter of Hillary Clinton) and activist Brittany Packnett, calling the ad ‘awful’ and ‘tone deaf’. Now, Rihanna herself has declared war on the social network. “Now Snapchat, I know you already know you aren’t my fav app out there!”, she starts her open letter via Instagram’s rival stories feature. ‘You spent money to animate something that would intentionally bring shame to DV victims and made a joke of it.’
In the next lines, Rihanna emphasises that it’s not just her own feelings that were hurt. More than that, she calls out Snapchat for poking fun at domestic abuse. “All the women, children, and men that have been victims of DV in the past and especially the ones who haven't made it out yet...You let us down! Throw the whole app-oligy away.”
“I’d love to call it ignorance, but I know you ain’t that dumb,” she added.
“The ad was reviewed and approved in error, as it violates our advertising guidelines,” a statement from Snapchat said, according to Metro. “We immediately removed the ad last weekend, once we became aware. We are sorry that this happened.”