Slim-Fast Sheds Whoopi Goldberg After Bush Riff

Netscape News ^ | 7/14/04

[11th Earl of Mar]

Slim-Fast Sheds Whoopi Goldberg After Bush Riff

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Comedian Whoopi Goldberg will no longer appear in ads for diet aid maker Slim-Fast following her lewd riff on President Bush's name at a fund-raiser last week, the company said on Wednesday.

Florida-based Slim-Fast said it was "disappointed" in Goldberg's remarks at last Thursday's $7.5 million star-studded fund-raiser at Radio City Music Hall in New York.

"Ads featuring Ms. Goldberg will no longer be on the air," Slim-Fast General Manager Terry Olson said in a statement, adding that the company regrets that Goldberg's remarks offended some customers.

Republicans have expressed outrage over the fund-raiser for presumptive Democratic nominee John F. Kerry and his vice presidential running mate, John Edwards, in which entertainers lined up to skewer the president.

The New York Post said of Goldberg's appearance at the event: "Waving a bottle of wine, she fired off a stream of vulgar sexual wordplays on Bush's name in a riff about female genitalia."

A spokesperson for Goldberg declined immediate comment.

Slim-Fast is a unit of Anglo-Dutch food-to-detergent group Unilever Plc .

© Copyright Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of Reuters Ltd.

[rwfromkansas]

Has she been dropped as spokesperson completely, or will she just not be in ads?

Either way, sounds like a victory for us!

[af_vet_1981]

Excellent!
Thank you Slimfast for doing the right thing.
You really needed to shed her load.
She was excess weight that was dragging down the company.

[sevry]

CEO giving $1.2 million to the

Have to agree. They did this - RELUCTANTLY! They like the 'whooopie'.

And Rush strikes again. He can make a lot of sense, when he wants to. At least on politics, he's a guy who looks around, and watches what's going on. He's aware.

[visualops]

yuck ping

[Future Useless Eater]

WHOOPEEEEE!!!! Great work, team!!!!
I've got no ping list handy so this is to just a few of you from memory with your own lists...

Slim-Fast signaled what was coming last night by removing Whoopi from ALL their website banners on ALL their webpages.
As usual, FR was out in front on this news!

A $1.2 BILLION LOSS for the shareholders on Tuesday, attributed to Whoopi, goes a long way to convince businessmen that she had to go!

Here is the BREAKING NEWS thread where we discussed it this morning...

Whoopi yanked from Slim-Fast webpages (BOYCOTT starting to work!)

(Before and After) samples of slim-fast's webpages:

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slim-fast.com as of Monday July 12, 2004

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slim-fast.com as of Wednesday morning July 14, 2004

---

Say,,, Has anyone got that picture of the CUTE kitten waving BYE-BYE, for Whoopi???

[Lauren BaRecall]

Or pantyhose! LOL!

[Mjaye]

Yay, I sent them an e-mail, too. And I think I'll send another lauding their decision, and buy some of their product to top it off. I know it's probably all about numbers for them, but still, look how many other companies have turned a deaf ear to this sort of thing. They did the right thing!

[MamaTexan]

It was my email to Unilever that did her in.

LOL! I held off emailing until today figuring they were waiting for it all to blow over after a couple of days.

Continual bombardment was not what they expected, and even though I was polite, I think I managed to let them have it with BOTH barrels!

[marblehead17]

Do you have a link to the NY Post on this?

[dano1]

Looks like they have better sense than Kerry, who thinks Whoopi´s vulgarity represents the values of America. Everyone should be able to express their opinions freely, but we also need to maintain some minimal standards of common decency in our discourse. Free expression and common decency needn´t conflict. Apparently Kerry doesn´t realize this.

[deadhead]

"Democrats speak from their a$$ when not talking out of both sides of their mouths. We speak with our wallets."

I agree, RasterMaster

[theriotcat]

Am with you Bocotting all the products I think they shot themselves in the foot Dont want to do business with stupid people

[TC Rider]

What an excellent way to de-fund the Left.

I doubt any other firm will be hiring her soon as a spokes-thing.

[Chode]

All the Freepers who wrote in to dump her... take a bow!!!

[heleny]

the actual Slim-Fast ad featuring Whoopie that Yahoo! posted with the story.

Anybody can look like that by sucking in his stomach while wearing his normal-fit jeans and pulling out the waistband with one finger. One probably wouldn't even need to buy an extra size jeans.

If that picture is the extent of Whoopi's diet results, she's doing even worse than Monica Lewinski when she was a diet company spokeswoman.

[Dog]

Here is what we can do next call and fax the Kerry campaign and say we are fans of Whoopie and we demand the release the tape to clear her name.

[Frohickey]

I can't wait for the day when actors and actresses are computer generated, and voice characterizations are done by computer synthesis as well.

Then, you won't have the embarassing situation where your product is being hawked by an airhead actress with unpopular political leanings.

[InsensitiveConservative]

Bravo! Perhaps Kerry will see the heart and soul of real America now.

[MarMema]

WHOOO-HOOOO!!! I am elated.

[Rastus]

She's a walking anti-Viagra.