Chrissy Teigen Quits Snapchat After Rihanna Snafu

On Saturday, March 24, supermodel, Lip Sync Battle host, and worldwide celebrity Chrissy Teigen announced to her 10 million Twitter followers, as well as the rest of the world, that she is done with Snapchat. She cited her fans’ difficulty in finding her on the app, as well as a controversial ad run on Snapchat, one that featured Rihanna and Chris Brown.

@chrissyteigen I stopped using snap. The update, the constant complaints of people not being able to find me, plus the Rihanna poll…no bueno

I stopped using snap. The update, the constant complaints of people not being able to find me, plus the Rihanna poll…no bueno

— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) March 24, 2018

The “Rihanna poll” Ms. Teigen refers to here is an advertisement featured in Snapchat last week which asked users of the app whether they would prefer to “slap Rihanna” or “punch Chris Brown,” a reference that made a joke of Mr. Brown’s assault on Rihanna in 2009. Mr. Brown, who had been in a relationship with the pop singer, was sentenced to 180 days of community service and five years’ probation, after pleading guilty to the assault.

Rihanna answered this in an Instagram story, writing, “You spent money to animate something that would intentionally bring shame to DV [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.”

Rihanna responding to Snapchat’s ad. I can’t believe they did this. pic.twitter.com/TpHQIXTm4j

— Gennette Cordova (@GNCordova) March 15, 2018

Though Snapchat pulled the advertisement shortly after Rihanna’s Instagram story came out, and an apology came quickly in a statement that admitted it had made a “terrible mistake,” calling the ad “disgusting,” and promising to make an investigation of the incident, Snapchat’s stock fell by over 4 percent shortly after the Rihanna snafu was made public.

Snapchat also took a beating last month when Kylie Jenner, who has 25 million followers, tweeted, “sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me… ugh this is so sad. still love you tho snap … my first love.”

Ms. Jenner, like Ms. Teigen and many other Snapchat users, was unhappy with the app’s most recent update. The day after her tweet, Snapchat’s stock fell by 7 percent. While that fall, as well as the one following Rihanna’s post, may have been purely coincidental, there is still a possibility that they may have occurred because of the celebrities strong reach and influence. Whether or not Ms. Teigen’s tweet will have the same influence on Snapchat’s app remains to be seen.