Martha Stewart deleted her first apology over the weekend and posted a second, calling her homeless Halloween costume "insensitive and not funny," according to Page Six. TMZ reports God's Love We Deliver, the charity she named to defend the costume, says it "does not serve people experiencing homelessness."
Statement 1.0 had a theme: to "bring more awareness to the very serious subject of homelessness." It got shredded, so out came 2.0. The Cut describes a highlighted, uncropped Notes app screenshot, which is the PR equivalent of crying in a parking lot with the engine still running. "My earlier statement didn't go far enough," it says. It didn't go anywhere.
The charity note is the killing blow. She name-dropped God's Love We Deliver to prove she is on the side of the poor, and God's Love We Deliver had to tell TMZ its mission is "medically tailored meals to people with life-altering chronic illnesses." So the dirt, the cardboard sign, the two apologies, the whole awareness campaign, all of it in service of a charity that does not serve that demographic. The awareness went somewhere. It just wasn't to the people on the sign.
Indya Moore put the mechanism in one line: an apology that ends in an interrogation of the people you offended isn't an apology. Post the costume, post the candle, and when it gets called out, post a screenshot asking why people are so sensitive. That is not a correction. That is the second costume.
YOUR TURN: Is an apology an apology if it comes from the same account that posted the costume?
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