Kendall Jenner: 'Nobody Came To Me' Over Bad Pepsi Ad
Kendall Jenner, the Kardashian-Jenner clan's second youngest sibling and de facto model of the bunch, sat down with Vogue for an interview about her career, her private life, and her various controversies, including her infamous 2017 Pepsi commercial.
Last year during peak news coverage of the Black Lives Matter movement, Jenner starred in a Pepsi ad called "Jump In" that featured the 22-year-old model defeating racism and police brutality by handing a police officer a Pepsi. The ad was met with a torrent of criticism, and some felt it made a mockery of the popular image of BLM protestor Ieshia Evans confronting police at a protest in Louisiana in 2016.
I'm boycotting all @Pepsi products until they apologize for this blasphemy. Here's a list of their brands: https://t.co/9Rf91nLVyX pic.twitter.com/HsvUvj27Bl
— Charles M. Blow (@CharlesMBlow) April 5, 2017
Due to the large amount of pushback, the ad was pulled just one day after its global release and Pepsi issued an apology. "Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace, and understanding. Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize," the company wrote in a press release. "We did not intend to make light of any serious issue. We are removing the content and halting any further rollout. We also apologize for putting Kendall Jenner in this position."
Although she made a semi-teary apology on an episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians and now claims to better understand why the ad was so offensive, Jenner told Vogue that she originally did not think her Pepsi ad was offensive because her many friends of color didn't tell her so.
The interviewer prompted Jenner by asking her whether — "as someone with so many close black friends and family members" — anyone had warned her that the ad might raise hackles. "No," she responded. "Nobody came to me to explain it to where I was like, Oh, I get it... I didn't think of the ad as controversial for exactly this reason."
"Obviously, my intention was not to hurt anyone," Jenner said. "Honestly, I just hid out. It hurt me that I hurt other people."
Still boycotting Pepsi despite the apology? Here are 10 reasons you should never drink soda.