1. Earlier this month, Katy Perry was criticized for her response to a fan who said they were considering selling their ticket to her concert, seemingly due to financial issues. For context, full-price tickets for Katy’s upcoming shows range from $89 to $150, according to Ticketmaster.
Craig T Fruchtman / Getty Images
Katy replied to the fan’s X post: “But I am looking forward to seeing you!” This tweet sparked a heap of backlash from internet users who questioned why the singer didn’t offer to help. “This is so grim. Not even an offer of a free ticket or help offered… girl,” one person wrote, while another said, “Girl, then give her a free ticket.”
@katyperry / Via Twitter: @katyperry
2. Back in 2019, Khloé Kardashian was called out for her response to a fan who said they had to work 20 hours in order to afford one pair of her Good American jeans. The fan wrote, “So I realized I have to work 20 hours in order to afford @khloekardashian jeans…and I’m in love with them…catch me picking up extra shifts,” and Khloé replied, “Awwwwww this is so cute!!!! I’m so happy you enjoy them.”
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Much like with Katy, many people questioned why Khloé didn’t offer to send the fan a discount code — or, better yet, a free pair of jeans. “ITS NOT CUTE SHES SACRIFICING THAT MUCH OF HER TIME TO BUY YOUR PRODUCT,” one person tweeted, while another said, “Give her a coupon code or a discount or something. ****.”
@khloekardashian / Via Twitter: @khloekardashian
3. A year later, Khloé was accused of flaunting her wealth amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which left millions of people with financial hardships. Khloé faced a heap of negative comments after posting a photo of herself surrounded by Louis Vuitton bags, with one person writing, “Flaunting excessive waste of money in a pandemic when the food pantry lines are miles long but it’s fah tha gram so it’s important definitely.”
“Must be nice!! You showing your expensive bags when most of us can’t even get our kids gifts this Christmas,” another person said.
Khloé notably ignored the critical comments and instead replied to someone defending her with a string of laughing emojis.
4. And years after THAT, Khloé once again landed herself in hot water after reposting a message about a “simple formula for living,” which included tips like “live beneath your means” and “give clothes not worn to charity.” Many fans felt that Khloé lacked self-awareness by preaching the message, given her VERY lavish lifestyle — and the fact that she and her family resell their clothes and accessories on Kardashian Kloset.
In fact, a few years ago, Khloé faced major backlash when fans spotted a pair of her then-3-year-old daughter True’s secondhand Cat and Jack tights being sold on the site for $20, even though they were available for $6.99 at Target.
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5. Years prior, Gina Rodriguez went viral after a fan asked her to “please help a struggling Latina sister who can’t afford to pay her tuition.” Gina replied, “Have you looked into the Hispanic Scholarship Fund? There are a few places to look for help mama lets research.”
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While Gina’s tweet is now frequently used as a meme in the pop culture space, many people have called out her response time and again.
Via Twitter: @notgwendalupe
6. In 2022, Oprah Winfrey had a visibly shocked reaction to one of her fans telling her that they couldn’t afford a $100 jewelry box as a Christmas gift. When the fan said that the box was “too expensive” for them, Oprah — who came from very humble beginnings, but is now one of the richest people in the world with an estimated net worth of $5 billion — replied, “It’s not. It’s really not, it’s like 100-and-something dollars.” The fan said, “A little lower in my price budget,” prompting Oprah to smirk and question, “Lower than $100?”
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Many people were stunned at Oprah’s unfiltered reaction, with one TikTok user writing, “The judgment when he said $100 was too expensive.” Another person quipped, “She was SHOOK that $100 was too expensive. ‘Do they even make things that cost less than $100?’”
Jacopo Raule / Getty Images
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7. In 2015, Gwyneth Paltrow faced backlash over her “food stamps challenge,” with many people calling her grocery haul unrealistic and impractical for actual SNAP recipients. As Vox put it, the actor failed “to capture the grim reality of being a low-income American.”
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“This is what $29 gets you at the grocery store—what families on SNAP (i.e. food stamps) have to live on for a week,” Gwyneth tweeted, alongside a picture of various random food items, including seven limes. She wrote on her blog, “As I suspected, we only made it through about four days, when I personally broke and had some chicken and fresh vegetables (and in full transparency, half a bag of black licorice). My perspective has been forever altered by how difficult it was to eat wholesome, nutritious food on that budget, even for just a few days — a challenge that 47 million Americans face every day, week, and year… I know hunger doesn’t always touch us all directly — but it does touch us all indirectly. After this week, I am even more grateful that I am able to provide high-quality food for my kids. Let’s all do what we can to make this a basic human right and not a privilege.”
Via Twitter: @GwynethPaltrow
8. A couple of months ago, Floyd Mayweather’s 25-year-old daughter, Iyanna “Yaya” Mayweather, tweeted that she was thinking of getting a job “for fun.” Given the current economic crisis, fans were less than pleased to see Yaya — whose dad has an estimated net worth of $400 million — tweeting, “lately i’ve been bored so i was thinking about getting a job for fun, and maybe work like 2 or 3 days out of the week just to see what it’s like… why not?”
Via Twitter: @moneyyaya__
“She’s out here trying to work for ‘fun,’ and the rest of us gotta work for ‘survival,’” someone wrote. “I love when rich people start cosplaying us,” another person quipped.
9. A few years earlier, Kim Kardashian faced a similar backlash for her poorly received “advice” to women in business. She said in a 2022 interview, “Get your ******* *** up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days… You have to surround yourself with people that want to work. Have a good work environment where everyone loves what they do, because you have one life. No toxic work environments.”
Amy Sussman / Getty Images
Once again, given the economic state of the world — plus the fact that amid the pandemic, women globally had taken on three times as much childcare as men — fans were less than pleased to hear Kim’s “advice,” which she later claimed had been “taken out of context.” “It wasn’t a blanket statement towards women or to feel like I don’t respect the work or think that they don’t work hard. I know that they do,” she said in a follow-up interview, before adding, “It was taken out of context, but I’m really sorry if it was received that way.”
Aeon / Getty Images
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10. That same year, TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp, who reportedly got financial help from her family to buy her first home, told the Sunday Times, “When I bought my first property, going abroad, the easyJet, coffee, gym, Netflix lifestyle didn’t exist. I used to walk to work with a sandwich. And on payday I’d go for a pizza, and to a movie, and buy a lipstick. Interest rates were 15 percent; I was earning £11,500 a year… I don’t want to belittle those people who can’t do it. But there are loads of people who can do it and don’t. It is hard.”
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She later purportedly replied to a critic on X: “Either you think I’m an out-of-touch rich ***** who doesn’t get how hard it is to buy a home in many parts of the UK or you don’t. The Times can twist things as much as they want, but in the end, it’s down to whether you believe in my empathy, understanding, and experience or not.”
Jeff Spicer / Getty Images
11. And finally, Grimes faced scrutiny a few years ago after claiming that Elon Musk — who is currently worth over $800 billion — lived “below the poverty line.” She said, “Bro does not live like a billionaire. … Bro lives at times below the poverty line. To the point where I was like, ‘Can we not live in a very insecure $40,000 house? Where the neighbors, like, film us, and there’s no security, and I’m eating peanut butter for eight days in a row?’”
Wwd / Getty Images
As expected, several internet users were quick to point out that living a frugal lifestyle is not at all synonymous with living below the poverty line. “I’m going to need Grimes to shut up about how Elon ‘lives below’ the poverty line when the dude is a billionaire and there is kids starving in every community in the ‘richest’ country in the world,” one person wrote on X.
Via Twitter: @sommermae_
Can you think of any more examples? Let us know in the comments.
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