As Balenciaga's "Scandal" Escalates, Kim Kardashian Weighs in
For the past week, all eyes have been on Balenciaga. When the luxury house's recent campaigns became the subject of child exploitation conspiracies, social media brewed up a massive backlash. Balenciaga replied to the controversy in relatively quick succession, offering a pair of apologies a few days after American conservative media initially picked up on the story but that didn't stop anything. If anything, the furor has only just begun.
As the days progressed, the conspiracy deepened, eventually leading to plentiful angry tweets about Balenciaga's so-called "scandal" in the newly-christened #BalenciagaGate hashtag.
As Balenciaga files a lawsuit against production company North Six, Inc., which designed the set containing a legal document that partially spurred the conspiracy, plenty of right-wing commenters have had their say on the matter.
Notable anti-Semite Ye, for instance, used the opportunity to offer some verbal retaliation to his former business partner.
Ye has recently spent a lot of time with Milo Yiannopoulos, a far-right agitator who mostly vanished from the public eye after his own pedophilia controversy.
More importantly, current Balenciaga spokesmodel Kim Kardashian broke her silence to make a statement on her relationship with Balenciaga and it didn't go especially well.
Online reactionaries were especially vocal in calling for Kim Kardashian, arguably Balenciaga's most prominent supporter and muse, to cut ties with Balenciaga over the gaffe.
On November 27, she finally tweeted a statement, which in turn received huge backlash.
Her statement came as a four-part thread, beginning with "I have been quiet for the past few days, not because I haven’t been disgusted and outraged by the recent Balenciaga campaigns, but because I wanted an opportunity to speak to their team to understand for myself how this could have happened."
"I appreciate Balenciaga’s removal of the campaigns and apology," Kardashian continued.
"As for my future with Balenciaga, I am currently re-evaluating my relationship with the brand, basing it off their willingness to accept accountability for something that should have never happened to begin with — the actions I am expecting to see them take to protect children."
The public responded especially negative to Kardashian's statement, offering in reply a mix of far-right "Save the Children" rhetoric and generalized Kardashian criticism (not that the latter is entirely undeserved, even).
Kardashian's friends and family have been otherwise silent, but don't be surprised if all the other Kardashian-Jenner Balenciaga fans, from mother Kris Jenner to brother-in-law Travis Barker, take their own Balenciaga break.
Balenciaga, meanwhile, wasn't content with the lawsuit alone. It also released yet another public statement on its Instagram page, effectively reiterating its previous apologies and promising to work with "organizations who specialize in child protection and aims at ending child abuse and exploitation."
