As the world continues to bash Pepsi for its tone-deaf ad featuring Kendall Jenner, another controversial moment featuring the soda giant resurfaced.
Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, known for his harsh opinions and race-tinged comments, once decided to light up Pepsi for its ads featuring Ludacris for the 2002 MTV Awards. According to O’Reilly, Ludacris’ lyrics weren’t appropriate.
“On the MTV Award program, Pepsi-Cola will run commercials featuring the rapper Ludacris, who some consider more vile than Eminem, if that’s possible. Apparently all that is fine with Pepsi,” O’Reilly said, according to Media Matters.
“What I’m arguing is that you’re legitimizing a man who is demeaning just about everybody, and is peddling antisocial behavior,” O’Reilly once told Pepsi spokesman Bart Casabona. “You have no conscious qualms about that?”
And Bill O’Reilly was actually successful in getting Pepsi to stop running the ads featuring the Atlanta rapper.
“Ludacris espouses violence, intoxication and degrading conduct toward women. Apparently thousands of you let Pepsi know Ludacris was unacceptable, and today they canceled him,” O’Reilly said in a follow-up segment.
Meanwhile, O’Reilly and Fox have paid out more than $10 million to five women in sexual harassment lawsuits in order to stop them from publicizing sexual harassment allegations against the political commentator.
O’Reilly’s beef with Luda would be brought up again in 2004 when Ludacris rapped, “Respected highly, ‘Hi, Mr. O’Reilly!’ Hope all is well, kiss the plaintiff and the wifey.”
SOURCE:Mic
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