On Wednesday, the Jenner sisters released a Kendall + Kylie limited edition t-shirt collection featuring the girls' faces and the brand's logo super-imposed over images of rappers Tupac and Biggie, as well as album art from Metallica, Pink Floyd, and more. The shirts costs $125 each. The backlash was immediate.
Many people on social media were offended that Kendall and Kylie would put their own image over such legendary musicians' faces, especially musicians of color.
Biggie's mother Voletta Wallace slammed Kendall and Kylie for exploiting her son's death and not asking for permission to use his image.
"The disrespect of these girls to not even reach out to me or anyone connected to the estate baffles me," she wrote on Instagram. "I have no idea why they feel they can exploit the deaths of 2pac and my Son Christopher to sell a t-shirt. This is disrespectful , disgusting, and exploitation at its worst!!!"
However, the t-shirts were so popular (or stocked in such limited quantities) that they were nearly sold-out by Thursday morning.
On Thursday afternoon, the t-shirts disappeared from Kendall + Kylie's site and all images of the garments have been wiped from the brand's social media accounts. Both girls tweeted the same apology.
They apologized and explained "it was not our intention to disrespect these cultural icons."
These designs were not well thought out and we deeply apologize to anyone that has been upset and/or offended, especially to the families of the artists. We are huge fans of their music and it was not our intention to disrespect these cultural icons in anyway. The tee shirts have been pulled from retail and all images have been removed. We will use this as an opportunity to learn from these mistakes and again, we are very sorry.
This scandal occurs less than three months after Kendall's racially tone-deaf Pepsi commercial was pulled from the air, and just weeks after Kylie was accused of ripping off a black designer's camo-print bikinis and clothes. (Neither sister apologized for either of those incidents.)
Hannah Orenstein is the assistant features editor at Seventeen.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram!
Hannah Orenstein is the author of several novels, including Meant to Be Mine (out June 7, 2022), Head Over Heels, Love at First Like, and Playing with Matches. She's also the Deputy Editor of Dating at Elite Daily. She lives in Brooklyn.
