Culture

Party City Apologizes For Gluten-Intolerant Commercial, Excuses Sunny Anderson From Blame

Lily Rose|

Party City has apologized for running an advertisement in which a character called gluten-free eaters "gross." The brand pulled the offending ad, but not before earning a ton of social media outrage from the gluten-free community and peripherally involving Food Network personality Sunny Anderson — whose inflatable snack stadium features in the ad — in the drama.

In the commercial, two women are in a room decorated for a Super Bowl party. They stand around a large snack table that provides a variety of options, including some that are gluten-free.

"Those are some gluten-free options," the script called for one of the actors to say.

"Do we even know people that are like that?" responded the other actress.

"Tina," the actress chastised.

"Oh, gross, yeah," the second woman answered.

"@PartyCity your new ad mocking people who eat gluten free is inconsiderate and wrong at best. My celiac disease is not your punchline," responded a tweet to the insensitive ad.

"Your Big Game ad is offensive, insensitive & hurtful to PPL suffering from Celiac Disease & food allergies preventing them from eating gluten. PPL choose to eat GF for many reasons, none of which should be mocked or scorned. @PartyCity you lost a customer," said another Twitter user.

The brand quickly issued their apology statement which read:

"Party City values its customers above all else, and we take your feedback extremely seriously. We recognize that we made an error in judgment by running the recent Big Game commercial, which was insensitive to people with food allergies."

"We have removed the commercial from our website and all other channels, and sincerely apologize for any offense this may have caused."

The apology also included a nod to Anderson, whose "Infladium" was featured in the commercial.

"We'd also like to clarify that Sunny Anderson was not involved in the creation of this commercial in any way, and we apologize for any offense it has caused with her audience and fans. We will also be reviewing our internal vetting process on all advertising content to avoid any future issues. In addition, Party City will be making a donation in support of Celiac Disease research."

The Sunny's Kitchen author posted the brand's apology to her Instagram and thanked them for correcting the issue "swiftly and with care".

Not only was Party City's ad offensive to members of the gluten-free community, it was also incorrect. There are a ton of gluten-free recipes that actually taste good.

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