People Are Pretty Offended By Kat Von D's 'Celebutard' Lipstick

Here’s a sort of obvious piece of advice — if you’re looking to market a product to a large audience and don’t want potential customers to feel alienated by whatever it is you’re selling, it’s probably not a good idea to name your product anything that involves the word “retard.” Granted, I am not a marketing expert, but that seems like a pretty quick way to peeve off a lot of people and get your product pulled immediately from the shelves.

If you don’t believe me, just ask Kat Von D! Following a campaign by people with developmental disabilities and the mothers of developmentally disabled children, the famous tattoo artist will no longer be able to sell the “Celebutard” shade from her lipstick line at Sephora. SHOCKING, I know.

As Emily Norman, a mom to a 4-year-old with developmental delays and a 2-year-old with Down syndrome, told NBC’s Atlanta affiliate, “I could not believe that a successful company in 2013 would use such a derogatory and mocking name for their lipstick. It’s more than that to millions of families with children that are trying to stop the use of a word that is so offensive.”

Joined by other activists (including Glee actress Lauren Potter), Norman spearheaded a campaign to get the lipstick recalled. Sephora has responded by immediately pulling it from their stores and issuing this apology:

“It has come to our attention that the name of one shade of a lipstick we carry has caused offense to some of our clients and others. We are deeply sorry for that, and we have ceased sale of that shade both in our stores and online.”

Initially, the name “Celebutard” didn’t sound all that bad to me, but then I realized that I’d probably feel differently if I had a kid who got called a retard at school or if I was in a position where people called me retarded on a regular basis, so now I’ve changed my mind — “Celebutard” is a terrible name (in addition to being offensive, it’s also just stupid). All of that introspection took me a grand total of 1 minute. To think, all of this could have been avoided if a single person on Kat Von D’s marketing team would have put in the same amount of effort as this intellectually lazy 26-year-old.