This morning, shock and awe rocked our Twitter feeds. Michel Rapaport, that actor from in every American sitcom ever who played Phoebe’s controlling policeman boyfriend in F.R.I.E.N.D.S (you know, the one that shot the bird?), trolled the world’s Princess, Ariana Grande. Essentially calling her ugly, he tweeted the following:
‘Ariana Grande is 27 acts 12, you take off those boots she hides her legs in, the cat eye make-up and the genie pony tale and I think there’s hotter women working the counter at Starbucks no disrespect to Starbucks.’
We’d include an embed to the tweet, but to be honest, all he wants is clicks on that tweet, because it coincidently includes a link to the latest episode of his podcast, I Am Rapaport. Never heard of it? Us neither.
Except that’s the point of this tweet isn’t it, to get attention to his podcast, by any means necessary. And in a world where Ariana Grande holds the crown for the most-loved popstar, whose name is in the news daily, with a fanbase that will defend her every move with the full force of their many social media accounts and fast-moving fingers, this is the perfect way to get a huge response.
Being controversial for clicks is a move fellow celebrities are often accused of, namely Kim Kardashian, who has been called out for cultural appropriation enough times to know better but posts her offensive pictures loud and proud. Even fashion brands have jumped on the bandwagon. H&M sparked outrage earlier this year for using a young black child to model a hoodie with the slogan ‘coolest monkey in town’ on it, with many questioning how something so obviously problematic could have made it all the way to appearing onsite, concluding that it was all a conspiracy to draw attention to the brand.
Whether these brands are purposefully being problematic or not we may never know, but in a situation like Michael Rapaport’s, it’s glaringly obvious. There is literally no point in offering up that opinion to the world, the post is still up despite the huge backlash it's received and the blatant plug of his podcast in the same tweet is proof enough of hate-click-baiting. And he’s got exactly what he wanted, with 2400 replies at the time of writing, he’s achieved his very Piers Morgan like goal of stating an irrelevant, ‘controversial’ opinion for clicks. In fact, we would put money on him coming out in a day’s time and claiming it was all a stunt to see just how many listens his podcast would get.
But regardless of whether it’s a stunt or not, whether it’s for attention or not, the fact that he’s using Ariana Grande’s recent influx of public support - that she has gained after a traumatic year suffering a terrorist attack, the death of her ex-boyfriend and ending her engagement to Pete Davidson – to tear down her appearance is abhorrent, and not at all justified by any stunt or need for clicks to a podcast, which frankly, if it’s really that in need of clicks, is clearly not worth a listen.
So, we hope you got your clicks Mike, because no amount of podcasting will save you from the influx of trolling we no doubt bet your receiving right now from Arianators. Hopefully you’ll learn that being a sexist pig for clicks is no worthwhile way of getting podcast listens, but we’re not sure learning that lesson now will save your reputation