Nicole Kidman has been blasted by her fans after partnering with controversial fashion label Balenciaga for its latest campaign launch.
The French-based fashion house sparked controversy in late 2022 after it released a shoot that placed children alongside BDSM-themed items.
The saga prompted more revelations to emerge about Balenciaga’s previous campaigns, with fans discovering the Spring/Summer 2023 campaign featured pages from a US Supreme Court decision on child pornography laws.
Nicole, who has ignored the controversy so far, surprised fans on Sunday when she was officially announced Balenciaga’s newest celebrity ambassador during the brand’s Fall 2024 fashion show in Los Angeles.
The news sparked backlash among the Eyes Wide Shut actress’s social media followers, many of whom have left comments expressing their disappointment.
‘Bad choice Nicole!!! Do better!!!’ one concerned fan wrote, after Nicole shared black-and-white images of herself attending the fashion show.
‘Disappointed you chose that brand,’ another added, while someone else added: ‘Nice campaign to make us all forget [eyeroll emoji].’
Another person wrote: ‘Nicole is always such a beauty, but DANG… money must be tight for all these movie stars and musicians too when they have to support that business.’
However there were plenty of positive comments praising Nicole’s glamorous photos.
‘Absolutely gorgeous,’ one wrote, while another user added: ‘Holy hell, these are brilliant!’
Nicole’s latest collaboration with Balenciaga comes a year after the company received immense criticism for releasing a set of images that showed children posing alongside a slew of BDSM-related items.
THE BALENCIAGA SCANDAL: BONDAGE BEARS, CHILD PORN DOCS AND AN ARTIST KNOWN FOR DEPICTING NAKED KIDS
The Bondage Bears Christmas campaign
The scandal erupted when Balenciaga released its 2022 Holiday ad campaign that featured children posing with its Plush Toy Bag. The bags look like teddy bears and are dressed in BDSM gear.
In the photo shoot, the kids also appeared surrounded by empty wine and champagne glasses.
The distinctly adult themes immediately troubled many who asked why children had ever been used.
Balenciaga ignored the scandal at first and seemingly allowed the photographer who was involved, Gabriele Galimberti, to take the heat.
He released a statement saying he had no control over the content of the shoot and eventually, Balenciaga released its own statement agreeing with him and taking responsibility for the campaign.
It has now been pulled from the internet.
The hidden child porn documents
After the BDSM bears fiasco, eagle-eyed critics started examining the rest of Balenciaga’s campaigns closely.
They soon discovered that in the background of an image from the Spring ’23 campaign was a printout of a Supreme Court ruling on whether or not internet child porn can be legally considered free speech.
On the back of the bears scandal, many critics said it pointed to a troubling pattern within Balenciaga.
Balenciaga was quick to blame North Six, a production company that helped arrange the shoot, for the inclusion of those documents.
They claimed that they entrusted all of the props from the photoshoot to North Six, and that their team was assured everything that was included was fake.
The troubling book of artist whose work depicts naked, castrated toddlers
Balenciaga is yet to answer for the inclusion of a book by Michael Borremans in the background of two of the images from the Spring ’23 campaign.
Borremans is a Belgian painter whose work includes a troubling 2017 series called Fire From The Sun.
It depicts naked toddlers – some of them castrated – playing in a group and at times alone.
Lawyers for the brand are yet to address DailyMail.com’s questions about how the book ended up on the photoshoot.
In the photo shoot the kids also appeared surrounded by empty wine and champagne glasses.
The distinctly adult themes immediately troubled many who asked why children had ever been used.
Balenciaga ignored the scandal at first and seemingly allowed the photographer who was involved, Gabriele Galimberti, to take the heat.
He released a statement saying he had no control over the content of the shoot and eventually, Balenciaga released its own statement agreeing with him and taking responsibility for the campaign.
On the back of the bears scandal, many critics said it pointed to a troubling pattern within Balenciaga.
A Twitter user discovered that one of the photos in a separate shoot contained an excerpt from the 2008 US Supreme Court opinion in United States v. Williams, which upheld part of a federal child pornography law, which Twitter’s own fact-checkers confirmed.
Balenciaga was quick to blame North Six, a production company that helped arrange the shoot, for the inclusion of those documents.
They claimed that they entrusted all of the props from the photoshoot to North Six, and that their team was assured everything that was included was fake.
