Benefit Grudgingly Apologizes After Fat-Shaming Hashtag Debacle

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Beauty brand Benefit's United Kingdom Twitter account seemed to veer wildly off message today, tweeting out "joke" movie titles to go along with a fat-shaming hashtag.

Yo @BenefitUK, you are scums :)))) and tweet-deleting scums at that. pic.twitter.com/dVsoD1XcJX

— Chub Med. (@ArchedEyebrowBR) July 6, 2015

As if one #MakeAMovieAFatty tweet wasn't enough, Benefit UK was having so much fun that it threw in another.

. @ArchedEyebrowBR @BenefitUK your second tweet was scum too!!! pic.twitter.com/jGjy3ALcp6

— Fetti Konfetti :hearts: (@fresheima) July 6, 2015

The tweets got deleted but Benefit couldn't move on so easily from the angry and confused reaction to the stunt on Twitter. On fan wrote "from a beauty brand that I THOUGHT was all positivity and light this is really quite...mystifying."

But an apology was not immediately forthcoming. Benefit's UK account tweeted an explanation:

Lovely Benebabes. We always get involved in hashtags that are trending. We are not poking fun at anybody. #laughteristhebestcosmetic xx

— Benefit Cosmetics UK (@BenefitUK) July 6, 2015

But why this particular trending topic and not Wimbledon or Frank Ocean's new record, Benefit fans wondered. "Can't you talk about the Greek debt crisis?" one fan joked.

Another tweeted, "'Lovely Benebabes' is the new phrase I'm going to use whenever I'm being condescending to someone." Vicky Kuhn tweeted, "@BenefitUK 'everybody else is doing it' is no excuse. Body shaming from a beauty brand is deplorable. 'Fatties' are your customers...for now"

So Benefit issued another statement in regards to the previous tweets:

In relation to our previous tweets on movie titles we apologise for any offence caused; we're truly sorry.

— Benefit Cosmetics UK (@BenefitUK) July 6, 2015

But customers weren't accepting the apology:

"took them like 3 tweets to apologise too..."

"this isn't an apology, no point being sorry if you don't know why what you did was wrong in the first place, try again."

"All that's saying is they're sorry we were offended by what they did. Not that they're sorry they did it."

"@BenefitUK or at least the person that just rescued your Twitter account from the hands of a fat shamer is!"

"@BenefitUK Think that's enough? Disgusted, wish I didn't just spent £££ on your products, can assure you it will not shopping with you again"