PR Exec Justine Sacco Sends Racist Tweet About Getting AIDS in Africa

A racist tweet sent by Justie Sacco, senior director of corporate communications at InterActiveCorp (IAC) caused a major shitstorm yesterday and rightly so. The dumbest tweet of 2013 said: “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”

That might be the grossest thing I’ve ever had to type into an article here. For fuck’s sake.

IAC, headed by Barry Diller, is the parent company of OKCupid, Ask.com, Vimeo, Dictionary.com, College Humor and a whole lot more. And Sacco is an executive who is presumably responsible for helping curate a positive public image for all those brands.

Sacco’s tweet was sent from London’s Heathrow Airport. Before the plane even hit the ground, IAC had a response:

“This is an outrageous, offensive comment that does not reflect the views and values of IAC. Unfortunately, the employee in question is unreachable on an international flight, but this is a very serious matter and we are taking appropriate action.”

Twitter users, naturally, had a field day with this, in predictable fashion. The public relations executive and stupidest Twitter user of all time possibly has been removed from IAC’s website and is likely out of a job.

UPDATE: Sacco has been terminated from her position with IAC.

Image via Twitter