Rihanna responded Thursday to a Snapchat advertisement that stirred up memories of her 2009 assault at the hands of Chris Brown.
The promo for a game called Would You Rather appeared on Snapchat last weekend, offering the option to “Slap Rihanna” or “Punch Chris Brown.”
After taking heat, Snapchat pulled the ad on Monday and said it had been “approved in error, as it violates our advertising guidelines.”
That wasn’t good enough for Rihanna.
“Now SNAPCHAT I know you already know you ain’t my fav app out there! But I’m just trying to figure out what the point was with this mess! I’d love to call it ignorance, but I know you ain’t that dumb!,” she said in an Instagram Stories message. “You spent money to animate something that would intentionally bring shame to [domestic violence] victims and made a joke of it!!!!
“This isn’t about my personal feelings, cause I don’t have much of them...but 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! Shame on you. Throw the whole app-oligy away.”
Snapchat, though, said in a statement that Would You Rather is not affiliated with the app and has been blocked as an advertiser. “This advertisement is disgusting and never should have appeared on our service,” it said. “We are so sorry we made the terrible mistake of allowing it through our review process. We are investigating how that happened so that we can make sure it never happens again.”
Chris Brown has not publicly reacted to the advertisement but his lawyer Mark Geragos told Us Weekly: "“They should change their name from Snapchat to Tone Deaf."