Beauty brand Ulta found itself apologizing Monday for a tragic gaffe.
The makeup retailer not only invited customers via email to “hang” with designer Kate Spade, who used that method to take her life in 2018, but also did so at the beginning of Mental Health Awareness Month.
“The NYC It Girl Is Back,” read the arty email. “Come hang with Kate Spade.”
The invite made customers want to do anything but.
“I cannot believe I got this email today,” tweeted one person, along with a copy of the email. “Is this some kind of sick joke? How insensitive and absolutely tone deaf. Apparently nobody in marketing at Ulta remembers how Kate Spade died. Disgusting.”
Those offended simply could not believe that no one on the marketing team had known that Spade hanged herself with a scarf in her Upper East Side home in 2018 after battling depression for years. A housekeeper found the 55-year-old designer in the bedroom of her Park Avenue apartment just after 10 a.m. She had left a suicide note telling her 13-year-old daughter it was not her fault.
Some folks did not remember how the designer died, and their posts implied people were overreacting.
Ulta apologized on Monday for its “insensitive choice of words,” avowing “the utmost respect” for the Kate Spade brand.
“At Ulta Beauty, our teams are human, and this was truly an error with no intent to do harm,” the company said, according to “Today.” “We’re keenly aware that May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Mental health is a very serious and important issue in this country, and not something we would ever take lightly. We are working internally to ensure something like this never happens again.”
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