Spotify Yanks Justin Bieber ‘Latin King’ Ad Amid Complaints

“We realized that this could be seen as culturally insensitive,” company says

Justin Bieber
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Sorry, Justin Bieber; the Latin King crown has been knocked clean off of your little Canadian head.

Spotify has decided to pull an ad declaring Justin Bieber a “Latin King,” after the ad riled people for some reason.

The commercial featured a photo of Bieber along with the message “Justin. Now Latin King.”

The declaration was inspired by Bieber’s appearance on a remix of the song “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi and featuring Daddy Yankee — a song that Bieber has publicly admitted to being unable to sing live, telling the audience at Sweden’s Summerburst Festival, “I can’t do ‘Despacito … I don’t even know it.”

But in a statement provided to TheWrap, a Spotify spokesman said that the company “realized that this could be seen as culturally insensitive.”

“We made a creative decision to feature Justin Bieber in our ad because we wanted to celebrate ‘Despacito’ as key cultural moment when music genres crossover,” the spokesman said. “We realized that this could be seen as culturally insensitive so we have pulled those ads.”

The Spotify ad drew a collective “WTF?” on social media.

“dear @Spotify , take this down. this is disrespectful. I’m sure we all agree.

-sincerely,
ALL LATINXS,” one response to the ad read.

“Spotify put Justin Bieber on a latin playlist and called him ‘latin king’…..the same guy who said ‘burrito’ instead of Despacito,” another criticism noted.

“@Spotify can you explain to me how in the world is @justinbieber ‘The Latin King’ when he isn’t even Latin in the first place?!” another puzzled observer asked.

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