Neutrogena failed Hayden Panettiere

0:07This episode of Stylish is brought to you by Mecca. with new launches landing every month at Mecca, they're always across the buzziest ingredients, brands to know and trends to watch.

0:23New studio. We're back and we're in new digs. I can't believe how lucky we are to have this lighting. It's crazy. It is honestly phenomenal. It is very, very exciting for me because I've realised that I'm actually quite a diva and I was not happy with all of the content of my stuff. I was saying that to Zoe, our producer, this morning. Like, Annika was getting close to having her own glam team. I needed it. And, like, especially when I was just sitting here sometimes a little bit sleepy. I was like, I just need all the help a girl can get. Yeah. But here we are. It is beautiful. It feels warm.

0:56It feels cozy. It feels like we're at home. Yeah. Love that. Into it. Well, if you haven't figured it out yet, you're listening to Stylish. Yeah. And I'm Joanna Fleming. Annika Joshi-Smith is here and so is Naima Fatima. and we are here to talk all things, what's the tagline? Fashion, business, beauty. We've had two weeks off, so we're not sure. I don't know if you can tell. Yeah. Fashion, lifestyle, brand and beauty. That's what it was. Oh, good. Thank you. There we go. Thanks for that pick up. I appreciate that. I'm sure that there's some exciting things that have happened while we've been on the break.

1:25I've been in Bali selling dressing gowns. Annika, you've been in New Zealand at Fashion Week and that is going to come into today's episode. What have you been doing, Nama? I actually didn't even ask you. I feel rude now. I've been in Cremorne at the Shameless Media office. Okay, cool. I've been here. Firmly here. Firmly here. But it's real nice in here. So, you know. No complaint. There's in every day we've come in, there's been a new piece of furniture. So, there's actually quite a bit of content to come on that. So, everyone plugging socials. We love a Shameless plug. Keep it going. But lots of, if everyone's wondering what it's looking like, lots of content to come.

1:56I love it. I'm forward to that. Now, we've seen some dogs out on the carpet. Not our own on these carpets, but on the red carpet. Margaret Qualley for the premiere for her and Jacob Elordi's new movie, The Dog Stars. I've not seen anything about this movie. This was a surprise to me. And then I saw he had a golden retriever on the red carpet. I was like, wait, wait, what's this? Oh my God. Medicine Sullivan thought we'll be like throffing right now. She was. Throffing. These shoes are the best things that have ever happened to this movie. Oh, 100%. Like this is the only thing I've heard about this movie.

2:25The amount of coverage on these particular shoes. I don't know if we could even refer to them as shoes if I'm being honest with you. I was pissing myself at the comments on the cuts post of the Chanel barefoot sandals that Margaret Colley was wearing. Now, I just want to flag that these are meant to be retailing for between $1 ,600 and$3 ,000. They're not even a full shoe. I just need a flag. So some of the comments say, these are perfect for NYC. Can't wait to get them. Obviously you wouldn't want to walk around barefoot in York. Another one said, is a one third Chanel shoe a recession indicator?

3:00And my favourite one, what in the yabba-dabba-doo is going on here? Guys, it is just too much. Like, I love everything about Matchy Blaise Chanel, except for these. I'm all for a divisive shoe. Do not get me wrong. I'm wearing my hooves today. I've got the tabbies on. I also put on my freaky shoe, Inanna. We are rocking our freaky foot. I love my Dries Van Notens. I've got the cutout heels. But these, I just can't get around, and I don't understand the point. But then, maybe that is the point. Like, they are clearly for the sartorial gaze. Can I get a description? Yes, I was just about to say that.

3:32Yeah. Okay. The heel of your foot. They're a leather piece, I believe that leather, under the sole. No. They're a leather piece under your heel. And then tied around. With a few strings wrapped around the ankle and the sweetest little Chanel logo. Make it make sense. This was styled by Danielle Goldberg, who like, to me, is the stylist of stylists. Because she styles Greta Lee, Zoe Kravitz, Ayoa Debris, Chercia Ronan, Carrie Mulligan. Some like very chic, classic looks that, you know, I feel like Gretelie's been on like a generational run with her style. Guys, I wanted to be a hater. Oh. I've been slowly coming around.

4:10Are you telling me you're going to get into the barefoot sandal and wear them to Cremorne? I don't think they're for me. I don't think they're for me. I think the sandal is for a very rich woman on the, you know, south of France. That's who I think it's for. I think when it was plopped into the sense of the London streets, that's where it looked real strange to me. I just don't know. Like, are we going to see these on the mountains of the Dolomites? Absolutely not. Do you know what, though? Okay, Naima, to your point, I feel like if you're going to take a risk and if you're going to take a fashion trend, the place you're going to do it is going to be the runway.

4:45It's going to be the runway or the red carpet. So I've got to give her kudos for that. And I do have to admit, her full look was very polished. It was very poised. So throwing in the freaky foot did make it a little bit more unconventional. But then I had to deep dive because I was like, help make this make sense to me. And interestingly, Margaret Qualley has a longstanding relationship with the house. Like she debuted on Karl Agafeld's 2011 show. She has worked for the brand continuously. She often wears Chanel flats and ballet flats on the red carpet. She wore them to her wedding. Yeah. So I was like, okay, there's a few synergies coming through here.

5:18But again, not for me respectfully, but I can understand. I was looking up the collection and the runway was sand. So for me, it did make slightly more sense on sand. I don't know. Because I just, yeah, I think, well, then the sand just gets trapped under your heel. Yeah. And it all just gets. But there was the middle ones where it just comes. Joe's a firm, no? Nymer's a firm, yes. Guys, did we see, though, Geoffrey Campbell coming into the chat? Yes. Geoffrey, leave it alone. I think it could have been funny if Jeffrey took the piss and went, okay, you know what? I'm just going to do the toes and not the girl.

5:54They had photos up of the footless shoe. Is that what we're calling it? I don't know. Before the Margaret Qualley thing. So I'm guessing it's based off the Chanel runway, but they were already pumping it out. They were ready to go. Their content was giving bondage. I'm not a lie. That was giving the shoe is only for the bedroom. I see that. If we call it a shoe. I actually see that. Anyway. I want to know what the glam was for this. Did you have to get like a really extensive pedicure? I imagine so because your whole foot is out. Like a glam ting had to have someone. So much chat around Margaret Polly's lack of pedicure for these as well.

6:29Like have you seen the chat around that? No. Because that was kind of funny. No, I didn't see that at all. Oh my god, yeah. They're like did a pedicure come with this price tag? Because she had her nails painted black and all eyes were on the hooves. Like who let the freaking dogs out? I was reading as well that these actually probably won't be available to the general public. Good. They're not VIP only. They're not. They're not. They're only for. So Jo, you don't have to worry. They're not going for you. They are going for that. I mean, I can see them getting around in like a local supermarket in Australia.

6:58Yeah. Like a beach side suburb. I really think they would take off there. Surfers Paradise. Yeah, exactly. I reckon they would go off there, but I just don't know if that price point is appealing. Yeah. I'd rather just go be a foot, like be fully grounded and lean all that. Nice. Great. through the walkthrough. Love that. Now, I know you probably expect us to jump into the swap, which is what we would normally do on a Wednesday episode, but swaps are now moving to Fridays, guys. We are so excited because we know how much you love our ricks, but we're switching up the format and I feel like you're going to be in for a treat on these Fridays.

7:27Yep. So make sure you tune back in on Friday and you will get our swaps. We promise. Well, today we're going to be talking about the backlash that Neutrogena is facing in the wake of Hayden Panettiere's tragic death. And Annika is back from New Zealand Fashion Week, as we mentioned before. And of course, she has a trend report for us but that's right after a word from today's sponsor

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8:41Thank you so much to Mika for making this episode of Stylish possible.

8:51So last week we got some really sad news about Hayden Panettiere, who tragically passed away at 36. Bring It On, All or Nothing was honestly one of my favourite movies ever. Great movie. It really like, it stopped me in my tracks when I saw this. I don't know how you guys felt, but I really grew up with her. No, same. I saw it come up and I saw it on a not very reputable news page on Instagram and I was like, surely not. Yeah. And then I actually went and Googled it because I was so sad to see that. You know, when you see the portrait photo come up and it's like, no, no. That's how I felt about that because she's just so talented.

9:27Yeah. It's just so disappointing to see another person so badly impacted, I guess, by Hollywood. Yeah, and she's been in the industry forever. I think we grew up with her. It almost feels too close to home because it's someone we grew up with, someone we love, someone we've been on her journey into motherhood and just through her entire career. And seeing this happen to her has just been so devastating. So devastating. Yeah. An interview has actually surfaced, I guess, in the wake of the news from Jay Shetty. It happened, I think, in May this year. And it was her last big interview. and she talked about how Neutrogena had actually fired her after a 10-year contract and it was because she had talked about postpartum depression.

10:11Here's what Hayden said in that interview with Jay Shetty. This was the last thing that I thought they would ever fire me over and when I actually went out onto stage, it was live with Kelly and Michael, I had no intention or plan to talk about It just came up, and I was just being honest. And never for a second did I think that anyone, or cared that anyone would have a bad reaction to it. It was my truth. And so when I got that call that Neutrogena wanted to fire me over that, and my representative at the time said, that's illegal. You can't do that. And even though, you know, she saved the day that year, I knew that that was gonna be it.

11:03That there was gonna be, I was not gonna be invited back the next year. And I had worked with these people for ten years, and I remember not hearing a word from anybody. Not a... great working with you for ten years, not a nice... Hope you're okay. Yeah, hope you're good. We wish you well. And I remember that really breaking my heart. As you can imagine, there has been a huge backlash on the internet over this. There was a huge backlash at the time when she did the interview as well. Like a lot of people were like, what the hell? What do you mean? You got fired for talking about your experience with postpartum depression, but even more so since the news of her death has come out.

11:47I only saw this more so in the wake of the news. So I was like trying to look into it. But obviously it's completely ballooned in that time. And so it should. As it should, yeah. Honestly, you guys, I picked it up when I saw the Jay Shetty interview. And my heart broke because I am five months postpartum. Being postpartum is such a delicate and fragile and sacred time. And spreading awareness takes courage. It takes so much bravery to speak about how much this impacts women. to lose a contract over raising awareness and actually like telling your truth is so fucking appalling pardon my french but i think for a brand that is designed largely for women the audience is supposed to be about supporting women how about supporting women in one of their most fragile times of need how about that and i will say as well this was back in 2015 yeah so this was probably just on the cusp of the time where we started to talk a bit more openly about mental health and especially for women postpartum talking about mental health and how that impacts them very much in the early stages of that.

12:51And to be shut down the way that she was for talking about it is really disappointing. There is what we call a morality clause, which gives a brand the right to terminate a contract if a talent engages in conduct or reflects poorly on the brand. So it seems like this is what's happened in this case is that they've felt that that was a negative representation of an ambassador of theirs, which obviously it's not in our opinion. She's well within her rights to talk about that. Yeah, which is interesting because she even says, you know, she's had all of her life kind of documented by the paparazzi.

13:22She said she's had every cigarette documented, every drunken night out documented, but this was where they crossed the line. They held a partnership. And it's not just a partnership. It's an ambassadorship. A 10-year ambassadorship. Yeah, that is massive. Pretty unheard of to have something even that long. That's a lot of money that they've put into her and a lot of effort she's put into them. Exactly. The amount of brand deals that she would have had to say no to as well because of Nutri-Drainers. Exactly. Honestly, just like it makes me question Nutri-Drainers, integrity, what do they stand for as a brand?

13:56Because there is a synergy between beauty, self-care, and mental wellness. Like it all does tie together. We want to back brands that actually have these values and actually represent something. And I'm not mad right now watching the internet do their thing. Like I feel like this statement was screaming PR crisis. Yeah. I want to read that statement for you so that we can get a feel for it. So this is post Hayden's passing. They posted on their Instagram, we are deeply saddened by Hayden Panettiere's passing. For more than a decade, Hayden was a valued member of our Neutrogena community. We are proud to have partnered with her and understand that we made her feel unsupported during a very difficult time.

14:32This is not what Neutrogena stands for and who we want to be. Hayden's courage in sharing her challenges helped inspire important conversations and awareness, we are making a significant investment to a longstanding community health partner to help give more women access to the support they need, including care for postpartum depression. We will share more details with this community when plans are in place. Out of respect for Hayden's family and loved ones, we did not want to speak out so soon following her passing. Everyone at Neutrogena extends their deepest condolences to Hayden's family and all who loved her.

15:02Something that I think is important to flag in that statement is that they have accepted that her explanation of why she was let go as an ambassador is true, for starters. But secondly, there's no actual apology in that statement. It's just an acknowledgement of what they did to her rather than apologizing for what they did. And look, we don't know if there was an apology that happened one-on-one behind the scenes with Hayden at the time that she did the Jay Shetty interview and all this stuff came out because that interview for Jay Shetty was around her book launch. She did a memoir and that's why she went on the podcast to talk about it.

15:35We don't know whether there There was conversations with Neutrogena after that privately. There could have well been and there could have been an apology extended. But to see this kind of lack of apology occur posthumously, what is the fucking point? I know. She's not around to hear it. And I wouldn't even call that enough for what you did to her. It feels so reactive. First of all, if you're going to be reactive, you should have been reactive three months ago. Like when the actual interview came out and her book press tour was happening. As far as I'm aware, there was no statement at that time.

16:05No, that's when you should have been reactive. And then to wait five days and then to come up with something like this. I know it's gone through a million rounds of review. It's probably gone to the legal team and they've said, nope, we can't say that. But to say we understand we made her feel unsupported, it's like, I'm sorry, you feel sad. There's no sorry in there. Rather than saying, I'm sorry that we made. I'm sorry we did this. Yeah, like that she was unsupported via us. It's like we made her feel unsupported. Yeah. I don't know. It's semantics, but I think the language is really purposeful.

16:37And I know it's gone through lots of reviews. Especially how it gets quite vague as well. Like around like, we can't disclose what we're doing right now. Like, guys, don't even say that. What's the point? Admit we fucked up. We did something so wrong. This is not what we stand for as a company. We support women and we will do better. And if there was something in place in terms of, you know, postpartum support and charities that they were being involved in, that would have already been in place if they had started looking into that while Hayden was still alive. So post the Jay Shetty interview, post her book coming out, if they had started executing these things and had them in place, they'd be able to release information about that by now.

17:14That was three months ago. Yeah. So it just makes me think this has been a knee-jerk reaction to her passing and the backlash that has happened online. Speaking of the backlash, there's quite a lot of commentary online about boycotting Neutrogena. The New York Post reported that on Google Trends, the terms Neutrogena boycott has spiked over 5 ,000 % in recent days since Hayden's untimely passing. And stock prices for Kenview Inc., which is Neutrogena's parent company, slipped over 2 % last week due to overall sales numbers. So I wouldn't be surprised if this does actually translate into a bit of a slip for the brand in terms of popularity.

17:49So in contrast with this really heavy news about Hayden is this kind of laughable incident that has happened with their current ambassador, Tate McRae. So excuse the tone shift here because it was quite funny And we're going to be talking about that in a very lighthearted tone. So sorry for the whiplash here, but Tate has posted a video on a flight leaving one of her shows. I don't know if anyone else has seen this, but she's not even using the face wipe to take off her makeup. She's like, taking off my makeup. And it's like, babe, that's not touching your skin. What the fuck is going on here?

18:24You know, those photos people take and the arm is like not around the person. Yes. Like that's how she got the thing next to her. It's so far away. It was so accurate. Yeah. It was so far away. You could tell, even though you were far back from the camera, that there was no makeup being removed with that wipe. Yeah. They then did like a funny kind of response on, I think it was TikTok. They did the response. It was on Instagram too. Oh, yeah. On both, yeah. And so that was taken quite well at the time, except, and this all happened, Tate's video happened prior to Hayden's passing as well. So it was kind of like, ha ha, this is like a gag.

18:58He he he. Yeah. And then it was like, hang on a second. Wait, wait, wait. But also I want to ask who? actually approve that video that Tate posted. No, seriously. I'm obviously not Tate McRae. Surprise. But when I create content for brands, I go through multiple rounds of approval. And the briefs are specific. Yeah, they're so specific. They make you go through multiple rounds of feedback. And I'm going to guess that she costs a lot more than me. There's no way there is not a lot more eyes on this. I would have thought that you'd go through a couple of rounds of approvals, but maybe in her case, because she's such a big star, they're like, oh, well, I guess that's what we got from her this week.

19:33So she's not going to have time to create anything else. So that's, I guess, what we have to work with. So it's either that goes out or we don't get the content again for another month because she would be so busy and back to back, especially if she's performing at the moment and doing shows. She'd have barely any downtime to be creating content for ambassadorship roles. So it's possible that she was just like, it's either this or nothing. Yeah. And then God, I guess we'll take it. We'll take her makeup off. Guys, the comments were just like, thank you, sweetie. I was in fact not born yesterday.

19:59day but like I was just like it's so obvious like the gag in this it's so obvious maybe that is the turn a little bit in general of the ownership being back with the audience now it's like when we had this conversation that was happening in 2016 that the audience didn't even know about Hayden being let go yeah because of these reasons because I think it happened a year later it's like she managed to keep her contract for that year and then it was let go the next year the audience probably had no power in that because we kind of weren't told it and she didn't have the platform to tell us. Yes, she probably wasn't allowed.

20:32Yeah, and she probably wasn't allowed. Even then we didn't have the social platforms where people could be as vocal about it. Now it's this turn of people being like, yes, amazing content from you to Gina to being like, oh. It could all happen in a week. And to kind of go back to the timeline as well, she may not have wanted to speak about it at the time because them cancelling her contract may have caused a bit of shame for her as well because of the time. You know, we're talking over 10 years ago. She may have felt quite embarrassed about the fact that it had been cancelled on her for those reasons.

21:01And she said at the time, Neutrogena cancelled my longstanding contract and it was yet another blow in a year that had given almost nothing else. Which is just so sad to hear that at a time where she probably wasn't able to work to her full capacity either because she was a new mum and she was struggling. It's just, God, you poor thing. It's honestly just so devastating as well because to think about how she actually gave up her child. and it's like this whole moment is just like she was clearly distressed she was clearly so impacted by her postpartum experience and everything else I'm not sure to do that to a woman when she's at her ultimate low like this is not a brand that I will ever ever ever be able to get around ever again I think a review needs to happen internally yeah and reconsider what next steps are for them yeah next up Anika is bringing us a trend report straight from New Zealand Fashion Week but first a word from our sponsor

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22:35Okay, Annika, we had a very brief chat off mic about you being at NZ Fashion Week. It was your mum's 70th as well while you were over there. You took little pops with you. Isn't she stunning, you guys? Like, how is this woman, Stephen A, obsessed with your mum? She's so cool. Me and Annika's mum, besties. No, besties. When she followed me, that was the best day of my life. I was like, she'll be so flattered by this because she is such a stylish fangirl. Like she loves everything we're doing. She loves all of you guys. Love that. And I think she really is where I got my impeccable sense of fashion from.