E.L.F.'s 'Legal' Claims Result in Consumers Boycotting

Move over, Sydney Sweeney, there's a new 'WTF is going on' in town.

Another prominent brand has just flushed away its consumer base's trust overnight after the release of a very poorly timed and very poorly thought-out commercial. Why, you may ask? Because 'Why the E.L.F. not?' E.L.F. Cosmetics, known for being affordable and for the people, has been in hot water this week after releasing a commercial featuring comedian Matt Rife and drag queen icon Heidi N Closet playing lawyers. The commercial was aiming to say, 'We'll always stay affordable for the people,' but really ended up spitting on women everywhere, saying, 'Hey, wouldn't it be funny if we got a misogynistic comedian that's only known for his domestic violence jokes?' The beauty brand shared the campaign on Aug 11, and almost immediately, things began taking a turn for the worse.

What happened?

The 'Affordable Beauty Attorneys' video takes place at the fictional "Law Offices of e.l.f.ino & Schmarnes," where we see two 'beauty attorneys,' Rife and Closet, talk about going to "e.l.f. court for millions of clients, helping them to access beauty products they deserve at prices that won’t injure their livelihoods." The commercial acts as a spoof of the real-life New York law firm, Cellino & Barnes, and their iconic commercials from the 1990s and 2000s.

“I know a thing or two about red flags. And pricey makeup? You deserve better than that,” Rife's character says. The ad ends with the lawyer duo asking viewers to report “beauty injustices” by calling 1-855-COLD-HARD-LASH.

Within minutes of the campaign's release, fans were outraged and saddened by the appearance of one controversial Matt Rife as a partner in the firm. Rife, who has previously sparked backlash and outrage over his domestic violence jokes from his debut Netflix special, has yet to comment on this miss by E.L.F. cosmetics.

“Oooooh. Matt Rife? The guy who jokes about DV? In an ad targeted to women? That’s, um. A choice.”

Wait, why don't we like Matt Rife?

Matt Rife, 29, is a comedian who rose to fame after his stand-up comedy sets went viral on TikTok in 2022. At the time, he was famous for his crowd work, but every now and then, he would rub people the wrong way with some poorly thought quips. As with comedy (and everything in the entertainment industry), you have to take risks if you want to see results. Rife decided he was going to use his 2023 debut Netflix special, "Natural Selection," to take the risk that will likely follow him for his whole career.

He opens the special with a joke on domestic violence, retelling a story of the time he visited a "ratchet" restaurant in Baltimore, and the female server had a black eye. He goes on to wonder about why the establishment wouldn't keep the server in the kitchen to keep her injury out of sight of the customers.

His audience at the time was largely female, and this seemed to trouble the comedian. In an interview with Variety, Rife states, "And that's one thing that I wanted to tackle in this special was showing people that, like, despite what you think about me online, I don't pander my career to women." He goes on to defend his joke by explaining how his special is catering more to men. "Yeah, but I feel like if she could cook, she wouldn’t have that black eye," he quipped. "I figure if we start the show with domestic violence, the rest of the show should be smooth sailing."

Following the backlash of his special, the comedian took to his Instagram story to post a fake apology, writing, "If you’ve ever been offended by a joke I’ve told, here’s a link to my official apology." The link attached led you to a website that sold "special needs helmets." His damage control following all of this controversy only led to more, each time Rife's defense came back to 'I appreciate women for giving me a platform, but my comedy's not for you. It's for men.'

At Dawn, We Strike

Since the release of E.L.F.'s new campaign, people everywhere have decided that enough is enough. With the beauty brand being mainly targeted to women, the brand's fans were left confused. Even if we push past the misogynistic jokes Rife loves and holds so dearly, fans argue, unlike his co-star Heidi N Closet, Matt Rife has nothing to do with makeup or beauty.

One commenter underneath the campaign's video on YouTube wrote, "Elf Cosmetics says on their "elf cares" site that elf stands for empowering legendary females while also simultaneously hiring someone who makes light of DV. You can't claim diversity and feeling safe and inclusion while also wasting your marketing budget."

Another commenter simply writes, "So… Rife was the only one y’all could get?"

E.L.F.'s global chief marketing officer, Kory Marchisotto, responded to the campaign's backlash by saying, “There is a big gap between our intention and how this missed the mark for some people … We always aim to deliver positivity, and this one didn’t. So we find ourselves in a position where, quite honestly, that doesn’t feel good for us.”

The backlash has been fierce for the brand, with calls to boycott coming from not just everyday fans, but influencers who have worked with E.L.F. prior. Videos have been popping up all over social media of creators throwing out their entire E.L.F. collection or just explaining their disappointment in the creative move by the brand.

On Aug 15, E.L.F. released a statement on its Instagram account, offering an apology to beauty fans worldwide.

“You know us, we’re always listening and we’ve heard you. This campaign aimed to humorously spotlight beauty injustice. We understand we missed the mark with people we care about in our e.l.f. community. While e.l.f.ino & schmarnes closes today, we'll continue to make the case against overpriced beauty." Fans were quick to point out the irony in this statement, as the brand has also caught some heat for raising its prices on products due to inflation. Hard to make a case against overpriced beauty when a skin tint from an 'affordable' drug store brand costs $18.

One comment in response to the apology read, "‘Missed the mark’ is a pretty loose way of saying ‘we intentionally alienated our audience by hiring a man who torpedoed his career by alienating his audience," with others calling the brand tone deaf and the apology meaningless after E.L.F. decided to leave the campaign up on all socials.

This rage-baiting by the brand may have gotten them engagement, but it's doubtful they intended a full boycott. We're already seeing the effects of the loss of fans as AInvest reports a 2.7% drop in shares and a 22.5% drop in trading volume to rank 444th in market activity. It's too soon to tell if 'The Affordable Beauty Attorneys' will cost the company to lose a significant amount of profit, but one thing is clear. It's going to take a whole lotta elbow grease for E.L.F. Beauty to win back its consumers.