Kim Kardashian says she’s frustrated people got “mad” for her not speaking out quickly enough after a scandal erupted surrounding Balenciaga’s ‘disturbing’ bondage-themed ad campaign featuring children. As of now, she still reps the luxury brand.
Kim Kardashian is frustrated people criticized her for not canceling Balenciaga after its “disturbing” ads with children
In November 2022, Balenciaga launched an ad campaign featuring children holding teddy bears that were outfitted in bondage gear. Somehow, that’s not even the most shocking detail from these ads – but more on that in a moment.
Kim Kardashian says she is frustrated by the criticism that has been hurled her way because people believed she didn’t speak out quickly enough after outrage built online over an advertising campaign by Balenciaga featuring children.
Initially, Kim says she wasn’t aware of what was happening, and she is “not in this campaign.” She also spoke about the exhausting toll of her being dragged into a “narrative” that had nothing to do with her, the Daily Mail reported.
Once Kim became aware of the controversy, the mother of four told her more than 337 million Instagram followers that she was “disgusted” by the controversial ad campaign.
“Even with the Balenciaga thing, it was like, everyone was like ‘Why aren’t you speaking out?'” Kim explained on the “Angie Martinez IRL Podcast, Yahoo reported. “And I’m like wait – I’m not in this campaign. I don’t know what’s happening, let me like take a minute to research this.”
“As soon as I saw what everyone was seeing on the Internet and the reality of the situation, I completely spoke out and gave my – my thoughts on child porn and completely denounced it,” Kim said. “But because I didn’t say ‘F— Balenciaga, that’s it.’ People got mad at that.”
“They’re mad if I don’t speak out,” Kim said, “they’re mad if I do.”
Despite speaking out against the inappropriate children’s ads, Kim Kardashian was the front-and-center model for Balenciaga’s Winter 2022 Campaign.
What to know about the Balenciaga child advertising scandal
The basics of the scandal centered around various sad-faced children posing as they held a variety of teddy bears dressed in bondage gear. However, there was more than meets the eye as people took a closer look at the photographs.
Some photographs showed one of Balenciaga’s Three Stripes handbags atop a pile of very official-looking documents, High Snobiety reported. Upon closer inspection and zooming up, eagle-eyed viewers discovered the document to be a comment from United States v. Williams, a Supreme Court ruling that upheld the PROTECT Act, a federal law that criminalizes advertising, promoting, presenting, or distributing child pornography.
Balenciaga left Twitter amid the scandal, but observers on the Internet have since been dissecting every move made by the luxury brand, including previous advertising campaigns that had been overlooked at the time.
Balenciaga’s creative director apologized on Instagram for his brand’s controversial campaign, stating, “It was inappropriate to have kids promote objects that had nothing to do with them.”
The designer also said his campaign “would NEVER have an intention to do that with such an awful subject as child abuse,” Page Six reported.
A “satanic” inspired child ad
Users identified other ad Balenciaga campaigns, including one that was featured in the New York Post, which displayed at least 5 questionable items in an advertising photo featuring a child.
This ad photo had a “bondage” teddy bear positioned against a wall and has a padlock choker around its neck. The other items include yellow and black-styled “crime scene tape” with the company name Balenciaga but misspelled Baalenciaga with an extra letter A. Baal is a Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice, and archaeological discoveries in recent times have proven that such sacrifices were not myth – they did occur. Baal is also associated with Satanism and devil worship.
Further, the ad campaign featured a child’s “horror” drawing in the background that had a devil’s head, and the child appears to be wearing Satan-inspired sneakers.
