Have you been following the Peloton drama about their Christmas ad, which features a terrified-looking wife receiving a Peloton bike for Christmas? If not, you should – according to reports, the company is not loving the publicity surrounding the drama, and Ryan Reynolds himself has gotten in on it, recruiting the wife for an Aviation Gin commercial.
Now, the wife has sat with a reporter to give the inside scoop on why she thinks this became an internet “thing.” Her reasoning?
Her face.
If you’re not familiar with Peloton, that’s okay – most of us only know them from their bad commercials. Peloton is a company that makes stationary bikes, and each bike is equipped with a screen on the front.
Through this screen, the company offers live and pre-recorded cycling classes. You can hop into a live scheduled class, or watch an old class to get your exercise on. It’s basically like bringing the spinning class to your basement.
In the original ad, a husband gifts his wife (and mother of his children, who are never mentioned again) a Peloton. She looks terrified as the commercial goes on and she records herself getting up at 6 a.m. to cycle, and more.
At the end of the ad, the implication is that a year has passed and she has put together a video of herself exercising with it each day to thank her husband? Which is weird, because y’all live together and why doesn’t he know?
When the ad went live this holiday season, the internet jumped all over it. It was called sexist, tone-deaf and frankly a little creepy.
Peloton stock absolutely plummeted after the ad went viral, which may or may not have been a coincidence. It dropped about 85% this holiday season, to approximately $5/share.
The actress who plays the wife, Monica Ruiz, avoided the spotlight for a while in order to let the ad “blow over,” but eventually she agreed to do a spot with Aviation Gin, which shows Ruiz as a tired, stressed housewife chugging gin.
Ruiz sat down with “Today” to finally talk about the Peloton ad and the internet phenomenon that surrounds it.
She says that the reaction to it is mostly “her fault” because her eyebrows make her “look worried.” It isn’t just her eyebrows, guys. Her whole face is screaming “help me.”
“It didn’t really blow over as quickly as I thought it would,” she admitted in the interview.
