You probably come across a photo in your Instagram feed featuring Kim Kardashian, Kailyn Lowry or Blac Chyna hawking some weight loss product, be it a waist trainer, debloating tea or teeth whitener.
Everyone knows how staged and scripted these promotions are, no matter how natural the reality stars try to make it look.
Model Mia Tyler is the first celebrity to expose the companies behind these promotions, which is kind of refreshing considering how much money she could potentially make.
Tyler, whose dad is Aerosmith frontman Steve Tyler, decided to take a screenshot of an email pitch she received, and shared it with her Instagram followers.
“Dear friends, I just want to keep something 100% with y’all. DO NOT BUY INTO THE BULLSHIT! I get these emails weekly and I always just send them to the trash,” Tyler wrote.
“I recently got this one from one of those big bullshit companies that all the plastic, famous for no reason “celebs” promote. I’m posting this email to show you how fucked up it all is.
“You don’t lose weight from drinking tea. It just makes you pee a lot. So you lose water. You lose weight from proper nutrition and exercise.
“Please please please do not buy into this crap. These “celebs” are all about the money. They get paid to post pics with products. That’s it. End of story.
“A couple years ago I was pretty low on funds and was given a lot of money to promote a weight loss product. I did it. And I’ve never felt grosser in my whole life.
“I swore off the entertainment business in that moment. I hate lying to people for my own benefit. And what I did was wrong. And I will, till the day I die, remind everyone to not believe the bullshit.
“Waist trainers, diet pills, tea and any other products that claim ‘fast weight loss’ are all BS & get rich quick companies.
“Losing weight the right way should take time. Nothing in this world that comes fast is good. Slow & steady wins the race.
“Don’t believe the hype. Be you. Be comfortable with who you are, and if you want to change the things you don’t like about yourself, do it. But do it the right way.
“Don’t give these people money. Blahhhhhh!”
Companies usually give the celeb a script to follow, which they can edit to make it sound more organic.
Jenelle Evans posted an obligatory promotion earlier this year in front of her Teen Mom 2 trailer.
“It’s been a a long weekend of filming, and I’m gonna be honest, I am feeling so yuck,” she wrote.
“Take out, not much sleep, no exercise and all that. Ugh. I’m getting back on the @flattummytea detox today – I use it for moments exactly like these! I’m bouncing back, getting rid of bloat and getting this tummy back flat.
“I’m going to be drinking it morning and evening for the next week and adding in some light exercise too. Flat tummy here I come!”
Kim Kardashian, who is the unofficial queen of sponsored posts, found herself in hot water after promoting a morning sickness product that violated FDA instructions, but it doesn’t include any mention of being sponsored, something the Federal Trade Commission requires.
The FDA sent a letter to the the pill manufacturers soon after the Instagram went up.
“The social media post is false or misleading in that it presents efficacy claims for DICLEGIS, but fails to communicate any risk information,” the letter read.
The Kardashians came under fire recently for failing to tag a number of their Instagram promotions as advertisements. A watch dog group actually counted 27 brands that violated the FTC’s rule.
This begs the question: How much longer do we have to endure sponsored posts?
