Tech billionaire Elon Musk joined a chorus of protest against Dove’s hiring of a controversial Black Lives Matter activist. Zyahna Bryant famously accused fellow University of Virginia student Morgan Bettinger of making offensive statements at a protest.
Bryant said on Instagram last week that she was hired as an “ambassador” for Dove beauty products.
The new spokeswoman, who among other things crusades for “fat liberation,” said that Bettinger quipped that George Floyd protesters would be “good speed bumps.”
Dove hit by growing boycott for hiring BLM activist Zyahna Bryant, which Elon Musk calls ‘messed up’ https://t.co/ET8rq0pZIk pic.twitter.com/Vh4V0kEaPx
— New York Post (@nypost) September 15, 2023
Bettinger’s life was forever changed by the backlash, even though Bryant reportedly confessed later that she may not have even heard the remarks.
Bryant’s accusations against Bettinger and others were made after a 2020 rally in Charlottesville. She wrote that the student was part of a group that approached protesters and made the “speedbumps” statement.
The accuser added videos of the rally, though none showed what she claimed took place.
This led to the predictable leftist outrage and Bryant initiating a campaign for Bettinger to be expelled from UVA. Investigators for the school’s Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights, however, found three of Bryant’s four claims could not be confirmed by other witnesses.
Even on the fourth claim concerning “speedbumps,” the witness contradicted both Bryant’s testimony and her own. The new Dove ambassador also changed her story later, admitting that she was not sure she heard Bettinger utter those words.
Records show Bettinger still faced disciplinary actions that may be an impediment to getting accepted into law school.
Musk responded to a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that said, “Zyahna Bryant ruined a White girl’s life over a non-existent remark. Dove just did a brand partnership with her to support ‘fat liberation.’”
The X owner posted, “Messed up.”
Along with Musk’s admonition were immediate calls to “Bud Light” the Dove brand. Social media users showed images of bars of soap in the trash along with promises to cease purchasing Dove products.
Meanwhile, Bryant expressed her pleasure on Instagram at being hired by the Unilever company as part of its Fat Liberation campaign.
She posted, “So when I think about what fat liberation looks like to me, I think about centering the voices of those who live in and who maneuver through spaces and institutions in a fat body.”
