Kylie and Kendall Jenner have pulled a new line of T-shirts from their online store after the mother of Notorious B.I.G. lashed out at the sisters for using her dead son’s photo on their clothing, and after his estate reportedly threatened a lawsuit over the unlicensed images.
Pictures of Biggie (Christopher Wallace), as well as of Tupac Shakur, rappers who were both killed in drive-by shootings more than 20 years ago, were featured on the line of $125 “vintage rock” T-shirts, along with images of Kendall, 21, and Kylie, 19.
“The disrespect of these girls to not even reach out to me or anyone connected to the estate baffles me,” Voletta Wallace wrote on Instagram Thursday. “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!!!
TMZ reported that an attorney for the Notorious B.I.G. estate sent a “cease and desist” letter to the Jenners Thursday ordering them to stop selling the shirts with the rapper’s image, and gave a deadline of 5 p.m. Friday.
All of the shirts vanished from the store site Thursday; they had gone on sale Wednesday.
Kendall Jenner posted an apology for the shirts Thursday, saying the designs were “not well thought out.”
“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 any way,” she wrote.
The T-shirt line also used photos from Metallica, Pink Floyd, the Doors, Kiss, and former Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne.
Ozzy’s wife, Sharon Osbourne, zinged the sisters in a tweet: “Girls, you haven’t earned the right to put your face with musical icons. Stick to what you know...lip gloss.”
The sisters also got a heap of criticism from music fans on social media.
Kendall Jenner, who called Tupac her “spirit animal” in a Vogue video last year, was blasted in April after appearing in a controversial Pepsi ad in which she played a model who calmed tensions between police and protesters in a vaguely social-justice-themed demonstration by handing an officer a Pepsi. The ad caused such an uproar that Pepsi pulled it off the air.
It’s been a tough couple of weeks for the Jenner-Kardashian clan. Kim Kardashian earlier this week was criticized after she posted a photo of her son, Saint, in a car seat facing the wrong way. She was also lambasted for a photo last week launching her new makeup line that showed her with darker skin, which some observers called “blackface” and claimed had been digitally altered. She said she was just “really tan” that day.
And earlier this month, fashion designer Destiney Bleu accused Khloe Kardashian of copying Bleu’s bedazzled clothing designs for Khloe’s new Good American collection. Kardashian denied the clothing was a copy of Destiney Blue’s creations.