The New York Post reported on Ulta Beauty’s ugliness—that is, its outrageous example of cultural cluelessness—which ignited much-deserved online backlash. The cosmetics beauty retailer sent out the email referenced above, allegedly unintentionally making light of Kate Spade’s suicide by hanging in 2018. To make matters even more disgusting, May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Beautiful.
Fans rip Ulta Beauty for shocking email about Kate Spade’s suicide
By Samantha Ibrahim
Ulta Beauty is attempting to makeup with fans after ugly backlash over its latest “tone-deaf” email promotion.
The cosmetics mega company sent out an email for a Kate Spade perfume on Sunday that unintentionally alluded to the designer’s suicide. Ulta’s message to customers read “Come hang with Kate Spade” alongside a sale for its beauty products.
Spade died by suicide when she hanged herself in 2018. She was 55.
The beauty behemoth apologized in a statement to The Post on Monday.
“Ulta Beauty recently sent an email featuring Kate Spade New York fragrance with an insensitive subject line and for this, we sincerely apologize,” the rep said. “Mental health is a very serious, important issue in this country, and not something we would ever take lightly. We apologize to the Spade family, our Kate Spade New York brand partners and to our guests. Thank you for understanding as we strive to do better.”
Fans were appalled by the reference and expressed outrage on social media.
“How disgusting to use for clickbait,” wrote one, believing the message was written intentionally.
“I cannot believe I got this email today,” one person wrote on Twitter. “Is this some kind of sick joke? How insensitive and absolutely tone-deaf. Apparently nobody in marketing at Ulta remembers how Kate Spade died. Disgusting.”
Another chimed in, “Just got this email … this is wrong of Ulta Beauty … Kate Spade committed suicide by hanging herself.”
“Ulta Beauty corporate probably having a MELTDOWN realizing somebody sent out a promo email with the subject line Come hang with Kate Spade … somebody’s losing their job,” a user added.
“Ulta Beauty f—ked up with their Kate Spade email. Not only did I get a metric f—k ton of emails all night, but the headline was BULLS—T. Ulta gives no care to the mental health community, Kate Spade or her family. Gross,” a fan wrote.
As May marks Mental Health Awareness month, another noted, “Kate Spade was amazing and an icon. Your lack of attention to detail is sad at best, negligent and hurtful at worst. Do better. #MentalHealthAwareness.”
Criticizing the critics currently disseminating the promo, one insisted, “Sharing that awful ulta beauty x kate spade email is honestly worse than ulta sending it in my opinion because someone in the comments who would’ve never seen it otherwise literally said they were triggered by it. that person should’ve just emailed ulta.”
At the time of the fashion icon’s death, her family sent out a statement saying: “To most of the world, she was Kate Spade, the beautiful embodiment of her brand and a glamorous cultural icon.”
Kate Spade founded the brand with husband Andy Spade in the early 90s, putting up their own money to launch their line of preppy, colorful handbags, which they hustled together at trade shows for years until the likes of Barneys and Saks would carry them — and without the help of celebrity endorsements as so many brands rely on these days.
The duo sold their stake in Kate Spade to Neiman Marcus in 2006 — by then already considered iconic, and expanded beyond bags to include other accessories, clothing and home goods.
Andy released his own statement at the time of Kate’s death, explaining that “there were personal demons she was battling.”
“Kate suffered from depression and anxiety for many years. She was actively seeking help and working closely with her doctors to treat her disease, one that takes far too many lives,” he wrote in 2018.
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