Posted by Just when you thought you’d seen it all, allow me to show you once again just how immensely ridiculous human beings can be. From the “truth is always way funnier than fiction” department:
Nine former fans of American Idol star Clay Aiken are forging ahead with threats to sue his record label bosses for false advertising. The one-time devotees have been shocked by recent tabloid claims the wholesome pop singer is gay and they’ve filed a Federal Trade Commission complain against executives at RCA and Sony/BMG, alleging they were duped in marketing and promotional campaigns.
The nine-strong group, listing themselves as “aggrieved consumers,” allege that employees of RCA, Sony/BMG, and Aiken himself “engaged in collusion to prevent public disclosures they believed might be harmful to their product.” The angry ladies go on to state, “This is tantamount to a manufacturer concealing information about a defective product. Therefore these actions were both unfair and deceptive to consumers.”
A spokeswoman for the group says, “As consumers, we feel ripped off. It is obvious now that the private Clay is very different from the manufactured packaged public Clay that was marketed to us.” The group is asking the FTC to investigate the practices of the record companies, to invoke civil penalties where appropriate, and to enjoin the companies from violating the Federal Trade Commission Act.
I’m sure the folks in the FTC office are having a good laugh over this. They’re shocked to find out that an entertainer is very different in private than in their manufactured public image? Gee, I hope nobody tells them that Martha Stewart, Jaclyn Smith, Penny Marshall and Rosie O’Donnell don’t really shop at K-mart. Or that Rock Hudson was gay. The mere fact that you were a Clay Aiken fan in the first place is bad enough; to complain that him being gay amounts to false advertising…well, that’s cosmic-level absurdity. That kind of stupidity really should be painful.
February 28, 2006
February 28, 2006