In a shocking turn of events, The Weeknd took to Twitter last night to reveal that he will not be working with H&M anymore after a racially offensive photo was spotted on the Swedish fashion giant’s website. An inappropriate image which showed a black boy modeling a hoodie that read “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle”, the ‘Starboy‘ hitmaker expressed his views on the whole incident in a tweet saying: “Woke up this morning shocked and embarrassed by this photo. I’m deeply offended and will not be working with H&M anymore”.
Having worked on successful collaborative campaigns with H&M in the recent past under his famed XO brand, they also issued a statement to Pitchfork:
“We understand that many people are upset about the image. We, who work at H&M, can only agree. We are deeply sorry that the picture was taken, and we also regret the actual print. Therefore, we have not only removed the image from our channels, but also the garment from our product offering globally. It is obvious that our routines have not been followed properly. This is without any doubt. We will thoroughly investigate why this happened to prevent this type of mistake from happening again.”
Check out Abel’s tweet below.
woke up this morning shocked and embarrassed by this photo. i’m deeply offended and will not be working with @hm anymore… pic.twitter.com/P3023iYzAb
— The Weeknd (@theweeknd) January 8, 2018
H/T: Pitchfork