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Pepsi Pulls Kendall Jenner Ad Following Intense Backlash

Pepsi Pulls Kendall Jenner Ad Following Intense Backlash

Pepsi apologized for its advertisement featuring Kendall Jenner at a political protest and pulled the video from YouTube on Wednesday following intense backlash over the way it portrayed demonstrators and police officers.

“Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize,” the company said in a statement, per Wall Street Journal reporter Jennifer Maloney.

“We did not intend to make light of any serious issue,” the statement read. “We are removing the content and halting any further rollout.”

“We also apologize for putting Kendall Jenner in this position,” the company concluded.

The advertisement, which was uploaded to YouTube on Monday, had already been removed by the time this post was published.

The ad faced near-immediate criticism over its portrayal of police-protestors relations. In the ad, Jenner walks through a crowd to hand an officer a can of Pepsi, leading to raucous cheers from the crowd and a smile from the officer.

Roughly an hour before Pepsi announced that it had decided to pull the ad, Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., criticized the ad herself. “If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi,” she quipped.

You can still view the ad below.

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