Following Katy Perry‘s trip to space on Monday as part of an all-female Blue Origin mission, the official social platform X account for Wendy’s made headlines by poking fun her. The burger chain has now apologized — sort of.
In response to a post that said, “Katy Perry has returned from space,” the Wendy’s account wrote, “Can we send her back?” It also wrote, “When we said women in stem this isn’t what we meant.” The posts got a lot of attention, both positive and negative, with Katy’s camp in the “negative” category.
A source close to the situation tells People, “Wendy’s didn’t make a joke — they made a choice. Their recent posts on X aimed at Katy Perry were not only disrespectful, but blatantly inappropriate. This wasn’t harmless banter, this was a billion-dollar brand using its platform to publicly demean a woman.”
The source added, “[T]his kind of behavior contributes to a culture where women are punished for standing out or a woman daring to do something different is a target. Telling a woman that she should be ‘sent back’ is shameful bullying. … What’s worse is that the face of Wendy’s is a woman, which makes this decision not just hypocritical, but painfully ironic.”
In response, Wendy’s issued a statement to People, saying, “We always bring a little spice to our socials, but Wendy’s has a ton of respect for Katy Perry and her out-of-this-world-talent.”
Meanwhile, Katy seems unbothered. On Thursday she announced that she’s selling limited-edition Katy dolls based on the outfits she wore during her PLAY residency in Las Vegas. There are only 1,000 available at $175 each.
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