The president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) slammed luxury stationary bike company Peloton for pulling ads on a podcast over the host’s interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
UFC president Dana White blasted Peloton on comedian Theo Von’s show after the comedian said the exercise bike company pulled advertisements over his interview with Kennedy.
A Peloton spokesperson disputed the claim that it requested Von remove episodes, and told Fox News Digital that the company pulled its advertising due to the comedian’s content going against the company’s “brand safety guidelines.”
White bashed Peloton in an expletive-laden tongue-lashing after Von told him that the high-end workout equipment company pulled the ads.
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“Peloton, what do they sell, f—ing… stationary bikes?” White said. “Peloton sells stationary bikes, and they’ve got a problem with Robert f—ing Kennedy.”
“F— you Peloton! Who the f— are they? Are you f—ing kidding me?” the UFC president continued. “F—ing Peloton, calling, b—-ing about Robert Kennedy.”
White and Von ripped into Peloton and the company’s CEO, Barry McCarthy, in the podcast episode. White said that he would be removing his gym’s Peloton bikes.
“We’re getting rid of the Pelotons,” White said. “Pelotons are out of the gym.”
Von said Peloton “was about to go public or something” and that his ad agency said, “There’s worry that this could ruin everything.”
“It’s f—ing 8 o’clock at night on a Friday or something, and they made us go take an older episode down because of something he said recently in the news,” Von said.
“This was like… two years ago,” Von added.
Peloton’s spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the company asked for its ad to be pulled from a December 2021 episode featuring an interview with Kennedy, due to the company’s “brand safety guidelines” restricting proximity to political content. The spokesperson said the company “continued to advertise with him.”
According to the spokesperson, Peloton’s “brand safety guidelines” prohibit the company from advertising in proximity to “drug and alcohol use, vulgar language, inappropriate things, crude humor, sexual themes, political issues, racial issues,” and other similar issues.
Fox News Digital asked the spokesperson about Peloton’s endorsement of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. The spokesperson pointed to company “values” and said “equity has always been a core value for the company.”
“But, again, let’s take the question as it relates to advertising,” the spokesperson said. “There wouldn’t have been proactive advertising buys related to that issue in either direction, right, because that was political.”
“So we’re talking about the difference in a statement relative to the belief of the company, the values of the company, and a marketing advertising spend,” the spokesperson continued.
Additionally, the spokesperson said Peloton pulled its advertising with Von after a sponsored March 2022 episode that delved into pornography and sexual situations.
Von’s content is known to cross into sexual and other mature themes. Fox News Digital asked the spokesperson if Peloton had asked to have ads pulled from similar episodes, but the spokesperson was “unsure” if that had happened.
The spokesperson suggested that Von’s content may have changed over the years.
“I think you’d need to study the arc of his podcast to see how it has evolved,” the spokesperson said. “Unsure what a ‘typical’ episode includes today vs. 2021.”
The spokesperson also said the company does its “best, but it’s impossible to see/hear every episode, every place” it advertises. Like “any brand, we do our best to stay on top of it all so we can be as consistent as humanly possible in real-time as it relates to our brand safety guidelines,” the spokesperson said.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Von’s podcast for comment.
