oof

Spotify Declares Justin Bieber ‘Latin King’ in Ad, Immediately Realizes That’s a Bad Idea

Smh. Photo: Kevin Mazur/One Love Manchester/Getty Images for One Love Manche

Noted English speaker Justin Bieber has publicly admitted he does not know the words to his hit song “Despacito” with Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee in which he sings in Spanish because, well, he can’t speak Spanish. (And has put the little Spanish he does know to rather ignorant use.) That minor detail be damned, Spotify has now declared Bieber a “Latin King” in an unfortunate new ad. (It goes without saying that, in addition to not knowing Spanish, Biebs is also not Latino.) The Latinx community called out Spotify for being complicit in cultural appropriation, demanding the ad be pulled. In a statement to the New York Daily News, Spotify says it has: “We made a creative decision to feature Justin Bieber in our ad because we wanted to celebrate ‘Despacito’ as key cultural moment when music genres crossover. We realized that this could be seen as culturally insensitive so we have pulled those ads.” The company’s error in judgement now lives on in screenshots of the ad.

Spotify Removes Ad Calling Justin Bieber ‘Latin King’