June 9, 2025 • 34 mins
Off the back of the King's Birthday long weekend, we have a special episode for you. After countless requests, here is the third instalment of our deep dive series on Sarah's Day.
When we left you last, Sarah Stevenson’s popularity was through the roof. Fresh from activating #MILF life after the birth of her son Fox Ocean, Sarah had managed to sidestep her CIN 3 scandal, replacing controversy with baby spam and her new house renos.
But no one could have predicted what 2020 would hold for Sarah, let alone the world. The COVID 19 pandemic changed life as we knew it. Locked inside our homes with more free time than ever, public sentiments towards influencers began to change and ‘cancel culture’ took hold.
The same year the Black Lives Matter movements shook the world with protests breaking out across the globe following the murder of George Floyd. 2020 was a horror year for everyone but for Sarah it was her most controversial yet, as three of her biggest controversies played out in front of a captive audience in lockdown.
Follow Outspoken on Instagram and TikTok, plus join in on the conversation in our Facebook Community. Podcast hosted by Amy Taeuber, Kate Taeuber and Sophie Taeuber.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Episode three, The Sees Scandals, Sarah Stevenson's popularity was through
the roof, fresh from activating hashtag milflife after the birth
of her son Fox Ocean, Sarah had managed to sidestep
Heer Sin three scandal, replacing controversy with baby Spam and
their new house. Rnos and the masses were loving it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
But no one could have predicted what twenty twenty would
hold for Sarah's day, let alone the world.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
There are fears more than a thousand people could be
infected with the deadly SARS like virus in China. The
World Health Organization has declared coronavirus a global pandemic.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
The COVID nineteen pandemic changed life as we knew it.
Locked inside our homes with more free time than ever,
public sentiment towards influences began to change and cancel culture
took hold. The same year, the Black Lives Matter movement
shook the world, with protests breaking out across the globe
following the murder of George Floyd.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Cities across the United States remained in a state of
high tension tonight, as the country braces itself for another
wave of protests over the death of George Floyd.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Twenty twenty was a horror year for everyone, but for
Sarah it was the year she got canceled as three
of her biggest controversies played out in front of a
captive audience in Lockdown.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
We are journalist Amy Kay and Sophie Torbert and this
is outspoken Plus in.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Episode two, we Left You.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
In late twenty nineteen, in Australia, bushfires were ravishing the country.
The new year brought further devastation as fires continued to
burn out of control.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia are waking up
to widespread fire damage. We know properties have been lost,
we know many towns are without power, but the true
extent is being assessed right now.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
More than forty six million acres were burnt during the
twenty nineteen and twenty twenty bushfires, and devastatingly, thirty four
people were killed and nearly three billion animals.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Lost their lives or were placed.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
All anyone could talk about was what could be done
to help. Influencers and brands jumped on the cause and
began sharing ways followers could help those impacted. I remember
at the time Mitch Orville was getting a lot of
attention because he managed to raise over two hundred and
seventy thousand dollars alongside his brand Hooded Smile, and Sarah's
Day was quick to follow this trend. In November, she
(02:23):
announced that one dollar from each of her products sold
on the Bang Body would go towards a Saint Vincent
Bushfire appeal Now. To put that donation into perspective, Sarah's
Lebang Body products ranged from sixty ninety five to fifty
eight ninety five now. The backlash was swift. People labeled Sarah's.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Promotion as an underwhelming offer of charity, while others said
one dollar per product was a cop out. Another commenter wrote,
go fifty percent or one hundred percent of proceeds for
forty eight hours to be genuine. It's currently a cheap
trick to boost profit now.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Sarah jumped onto her stories on the afternoon of the
fundraiser announcement, complaining that she couldn't train because she was
receiving so much hate.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Here's what she said.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
The amount of hate we just got is actually disgusting.
Like we were trying to do something fun that was
going to give back to everyone, and yeah, I'm really
disappointed in like twenty percent of the people because this
was coming from a really honest, authentic giving place, like
bushfires is something really real and like personal in my family.
(03:28):
And when Labang called me with the idea, I was like, Yeah,
why would I say no? Like this is awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Sarah was late slam for her use of the word fun,
which people found insensitive and said she didn't understand the issue.
Sarah went on to say this this.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
Is a classic example of your damned if you do,
you're damned if you don't. Like if I hadn't done
anything with my products to support the Bushfire Foundation, I
would have got hate. If I promote one hundred percent
of the profits, I still get hate for promoting my products.
We say a dollar activation, still get hate.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
The story made mainstream media and the campaign was stopped,
with no party disclosing if the money raise was donated. Now,
off the back of this initial failed campaign, Sarah launched
a three day e book sale to raise money for
bush fire relief charities.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
The three charities.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Chosen were Food Bank Australia, New South Wales, Rural Fire Service,
Port Macquarie, Kohala Hospital and.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
The Salvation Army.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
As part of the promotion, Sarah discounted her ebooks by
twenty percent, and this time she said she would donate
one hundred percent of the sales made to her four
nominated charities. Now, Sarah announced that the sale raised a
whopping three hundred and ninety one thousand, six hundred and
sixty dollars, with the profits said to be split equally
between the four charities.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Now.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Rather than being met with great fanfare like Mitch Aorble,
Sarah's fans started getting agitated when she did not provide
an update on the status of the donation. So six
days after the sale ended, Sarah released a vlog where
she briefly touched on the fundraiser. She explained that she
had emailed the charities to let them know they would
be receiving a huge donation and asked them how to
(05:07):
go about transferring the money to them. Now despite confirming
she was in talks with the four charities, a member
of gossip forum Guru Gossip, she had an open letter
to Sarah where they revealed they had reported her to
scam Watch for not showing receipts of the donations she made.
The user wrote, I believe you will donate and this
was a genuine good deed you were doing. But this
(05:28):
is just a gentle nudge in the right direction. It's
too much money and too important a cause for you
not to have posted an update yet, especially when other
influencers have now. This letter spurred on others to start
contacting the Australian media publications who had covered the initial
story about the one dollar bushfire appeal.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
It's safe to say by now the pressure was mounting
on Sarah. People were beginning to lash out on Instagram,
with many comments getting swiftly deleted. This stress led to
Sarah having a complete meltdown in her outside of a
bank ten days after the fundraiser had ended. So the
day prior, she had updated her followers saying that she
was unable to donate to the Koala Hospital because her
(06:10):
bank wouldn't allow her to make a transaction that big.
So the following day, Sarah complained the bank had only
let her transfer money to two of the four charities
because of the transfer limit, and that she would need
to come back the next day. It's important to note
that Sarah did visit the bank at four pm when
it was closing. She said I'm just trying to do
this nice thing and donate all this money for my
(06:31):
country and the animals. Sarah went on to complain that
she'd been trying to pay everyone for over a week,
but none of the charities were accepting the bank transfers
because the daily limit on her account was one hundred
thousand dollars. Now, when you consider that Sarah was trying
to transfer each charity around eighty nine thousand dollars, wouldn't
have only taken her four days to finalize these transfers.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I think the fact that she was complaining and putting
a lot of the blame on the charities really caused
a sour taste in people's mind. I mean, obviously it
sounds like it was a bit of a complex process
to do, but I think, don't share the struggles.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
That you're having with online. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
So, on the twenty second of January, five days after
Sarah's meltdown at the bank, Sarah confirmed that all four
charities had received their donations. Sarah shared a screenshot of
handwritten calculations and wrote, all charities have received their donations?
Were who When I contacted the charities to let them
know they'd be getting eighty nine thousand, thirteen dollars and
(07:29):
seventy five cents. They were absolutely overwhelmed and so grateful.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Originally some people were complaining that the sum Sarah provided
didn't add up, but they were forgetting about the GST.
So it's important to note that according to a chartered
tax accountant, Sarah did everything completely within the rules of
the tax legislation in Australia.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
It's very likely that she would.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Have an accountant providing advice on how to maximize their
profit and cash. So in this case, what people appeared
to have an issue with is with Sarah promoting that
she would donate one hundred percent of sales rather than
saying one hundred percent of profits. I mean, I think
it's a bit tit for tat at this stage.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, in this instance, I do feel like people were
very harsh on Sarah, considering that she did raise such
a huge amount of money for charity. I do think
people are forgetting that there were so many celebrities and
influencers jumping in and trying to raise money without actually
thinking through the process of how they would end up
transferring such a huge amount of money to a charity.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
I think if this was a.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Campaign that she had set up with a lot of
preparation time, it would have been fair to sort of
launch this criticism at her, But considering it was something
done on the fly, I do think it was a
little bit unfair.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I think it is really interesting to look back at
this scandal three years on when you're removed from the
emotions of the situation. So in times of crisis, when
people feel out of control, generally they do look for
someone to blame, and at the time, influencers around Australia
really were being put under the microscope by sections of
the Internet who were trying to determine whether or not
(09:00):
influencers were trying to help out out of the goodness
of their hearts, or whether they saw this situation as
an opportunity for self promotion and being charitable at the
end of the day is good for your brand, but
it's also something I would like to think that a
lot of people genuinely do to help out and make
a difference. And I personally felt uncomfortable by the backlash
(09:21):
that was thrown at Sarah during this time because, as
you say, Kate, she did use her platform to raise
over three hundred thousand dollars for animals and communities in need.
And I'm sure if she didn't use her platform, she
would have copt the same amount of flack and abuse.
And it sort of was a situation at the time
you're either damned if you do damned if you don't.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, I actually remember she did say that. And it's
important to remember that whilst influencers may come across as
these huge entities, most of the time they are individuals
running startups which don't have the support of a professional
team or strategists or lawyers behind them helping them make
these big business decisions. And I think there's a lot
of talk about how Sarah is in a bit of
a cronulla bubble, and I don't think equips herself with
(10:01):
the right team. She often employs friends or relatives, and
I think this is a situation where perhaps she didn't
have the right guidance in place.
Speaker 6 (10:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
And in terms of the criticism about her not donating
the money quick enough, I think over time it has
become quite evident that donating large sums of money isn't
as easy as it looks. And this was the case
for Australian comedian Celeste Barber, who raised fifty one point
three million dollars in a record breaking Facebook fundraiser for
the New South Wales Rural Fire Service and brigades donation funds.
(10:32):
So Celess said that as donations grew and grew, she
attracted a fuck ton of people telling her what she
should do with it. And things got really complicated when
the deed which governed the New South Wales Rural Fire
Service Trust outlined that money donated could only be spent
on purchasing and maintaining equipment, training and administration cost So
(10:54):
this meant that the money wasn't really allowed to go
directly to those who had been impacted by the fire.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
And I'm sure Celeste never imagined that she would have
raised that amount of money, and I'm assuming donors would
have thought that she would have the ability to allocate
funds to other bushfire charities if necessary. Now there was
a court case and the court ruled that money could
be given to the families of Fullen firefighters and used
for trauma counseling, but could not be given to charities
(11:20):
like the Australian Red Cross or animal welfare groups, which
upset many of those who donated their money. One month later,
Sarah's bushfire fundraiser controversy was all but forgotten as the
COVID pandemic took over our lives.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
The World Health Organization has declared coronavirus a global pandemic.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
As our lives ascended into the unknown. With stay at
home orders and five kilometer radius parameters in place, we
became increasingly infuriated by anyone breaking the rules or those
in positions of privilege complaining about being confined to their mansions.
Influencer behavior became a.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Major talking point.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
We were beginning to question whether influencers were doing enough
to deserve the privileges bestowed.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Upon them now.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
On the twenty fifth of May twenty twenty, George Floyd,
a black man living in Minneapolis, was murdered by police
officer Derek Sharvin. After being handcuffed and pinned to the ground,
Floyd repeatedly told the police officer he could not breathe
as the officer knelt on his neck. The horrific event
was captured on camera, sparking protests around the world.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Chaos, violence, fire, and looty unfolding on the streets of Minneapolis.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Black matters were at the forefront of the public psyche.
We were just two months into the pandemic and tensions
were boiling over. Social media was a wash with support
for the Black Lives Matter movement, with black tile shared
on June second, twenty twenty to show solidarity for the
protests and riots happening in the US.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Meanwhile, back in Cronulla, Sarah was getting set to launch
her third active web collaboration with White Fox Boutique. The
campaign was called Reboot and was based around the idea
that her line was being elevated. Sarah took followers along
for the ride, capturing behind the scenes footage of her
campaign shoot. Followers were left astounded when Sarah revealed how
(13:12):
she had been styled. She was unrecognizable. Her short blonde
hair had been woven into thick fluot braids, and she
was quickly accused of cultural appropriation.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Now, for those who are unsure, cultural appropriation occurs when
members of a majority group adopt cultural elements of a
minority group in an exploitative, disrespectful, stereotypical way. This can
include a hairstyle, piece of clothing, and a manner of speaking. Now,
to put all of this into context. Just three days
after the murder of George Floyd, Sarah's Day was forced
(13:45):
to pull her new reboot activewear campaign. She did decide
to reshoot the campaign with a different look a couple
of days later. Now, I remember the moment I saw
Sarah's hairstyle on Instagram. I instantly screenshot it and sent
it to you, because I couldn't believe that she didn't
foresee that this would be a problem, especially considering what
(14:05):
was going on in the world.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
It was just so tone deaf.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Yeah, the fact that Sarah's Day, as well as the
White Fox boutique team thought that this was acceptable really
shocked me.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
How did no one flag this with her?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Oh? I mean, the hairstyle was just highly inappropriate. West
African woman Safie, who chose not to give her last name,
gave some really insightful comments to news dot Com about
the incident because at the time, there seemed.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
To be a real divide.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
There were those who were deeply offended and then those
who didn't understand the gravity of the situation. So Safie said,
for her, it came down to differentiating cultural appropriation and
cultural appreciation. She said, sadly, so many people can't tell
the difference. She explained that what Sarah did was take
this hairstyle, capitalize on her refer to it as ghetto,
(14:54):
a neglect to pay proper homage or acknowledge that she
was inspired by women of color. She continued to quite simply,
she used a significant part of our culture to make
money off it. This is what so many black women
of color, like myself class as cultural appropriation. Had she
done her research and understood the cultural significance of this hairstyle,
(15:14):
it would be considered cultural appreciation, but she didn't.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Now Following the backlash online, Sarah released a three hundred
and eighty word apology on her Instagram feed alongside a
series of Instagram stories to her one point one million followers.
Sarah apologized for the hairstyle, causing any offense, and explained
why she made the decision to wear braids. She basically
said it was her idea to wear braids because she
(15:39):
always wears them and wanted to incorporate Coachella and festival
vibes into the campaign.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Let's throw to what she.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Said, so specifically, we need to talk about the braids
because this is where the controversy comes and the accusations
and issue of cultural appropriation. So in the first and
in no way I've said this in the caption, I'm
not made excuses or trying to justify. I'm literally just
trying to give reasoning because everyone's asking me questions, like
(16:06):
even if they're mean questions, Everyone's like, why the f
do you think it's okay to wear braids? Like this
is me answering, This is me answering.
Speaker 6 (16:13):
Yeah, this is a very serious topic and like for
us to be put in this category, it's very scary
for us because this is the complete opposite of what
we're about.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
Yeah, I'm I'm like the last person to judge anyone
or to try to be controversial or cultural appropriate, Like
I just want everyone to be happier. What everyone anyway,
I'm derailing. So I was the one who first came
up with the braid idea, and I showed I make
(16:41):
a mood board for everything. I made a Pinterest with
like mostly Coachella stuff. It was like these big braids
and they were pink and it was fun, and so
most of the pictures that I showed everyone were like
Coachella festival.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
It was really fun.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, So that was the pin.
Speaker 6 (16:54):
I had that like electric feel that was tied in
nicely to the whole idea of this campaign that we
sort of up with in the first place.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
And that's the thing. I don't know if I'm just
like not educated.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
In this or it's like I don't know, because not.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
Once did I even think about cultural appropriation. If that
even crossed my mind, I wouldn't have done it, because
you guys know, I hate conflict, I hate controversy. I
don't want to offend anyone. If I thought it would
offend anyone, I would have never, ever, ever, ever done it.
So again not making excuses, but you guys know, I
always wear two braids. Even when I had long blonde extensions,
I got my hair braided, and even now I'm not
(17:30):
gonna lie even doing Yeah, I'd be lying if I
said I completely understood what's okay and what's not okay,
Because even after researching so much, asking people, asking my friends,
of all different cultural backgrounds, of all different races, everyone
has a different opinion, everyone has a different It's a.
Speaker 6 (17:48):
Very fine line. So I don't know.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
So I don't know what's offensive. I don't know what
is cultural. I don't know, so That's why I'm like,
you know what, we had a call.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
With White Fox. White Fox.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
They don't want to offend anyone, Like the whole team
who worked on this campaign are heartbroken. That would put us.
Speaker 6 (18:04):
We worked on it for like three months or so
in the making, and now read for everyone, it's okay.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Initially, many people took Sarah's apology on face value and
accepted that she was ignorant and uneducated. It is important
to note, however, that the apology was not directed at
white people, but at people of color. Therefore, it's not
up to us to accept the apology. Opinions started shifting though,
when it appeared Sarah wasn't as remorseful as she had
made out originally. Firstly, both Sarah and Kirk kept the
(18:34):
sneak peak of the campaign up despite deciding to pull it.
The video included Sarah wearing the braids the evening of
her apology.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Sarah was also very passive.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Aggressive on her Instagram story about having to reshoot the campaign.
Now it was very clear she was feeling sorry for herself.
She made a snide comment about it apparently being a
tough day for everyone, not just her, to make matters worse,
a screenshot from Sarah's Day's Facebook came unity surfaced where
she was warned of the cultural appropriation weeks before when
she first posted about the campaign to her story. However,
(19:08):
at the time, the post was deleted and deemed as trolling.
Sarah's apology post was also highly moderated. It only had
messages of support. The original comments calling out the hairstyle
as cultural appropriation were also deleted, despite it being an educational,
well balanced discussion. Now, White Fox Boutique did not comment
(19:29):
on the controversy or issue an apology for their involvement,
and I thought this was really poor because it wasn't
solely Sarah's decision to launch the campaign, yet she was
the only one who.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Faced up and apologized to it. Yes, the apology was
not fantastic and it did not seem genuine, But I
find it really strange that White Fox Boutique, which is
a large brand, didn't come out and give a statement
and apologize because they at the end of the day,
they gave the all clear for this. This was their
brand putting out the activewear.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yeah, they were collaborating with Sarah's Day on the project.
You think they'd have a say in the campaign.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
They really seemed to hang her out to dry, which
is really confusing because they still do use her as
the face of many of their campaigns.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Yeah, it was very odd.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Now it didn't take long for people to start piling
on Sarah. It got to the point where Sarah and
her young son Fox were receiving death threats. Receipts also
started coming out of the woodwork. An alleged image of
Sarah's husband Kurt, playing scrabble emerged with a homophobic slur
spelled out on the board. A screenshot of an apparent
Bible verse Sarah shared saying people who don't believe in
(20:37):
God will get COVID also spread around. Despite the backlash,
Sarah's activewear campaign sold out in a matter of minutes,
and in October, they launched a restock of the Reboot collection.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
As part of the.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Restock, they filmed a new video campaign, which Kurt directed,
and of course, Sarah v log behind the scenes of
this campaign. She described the campaign as the most extravagant
and highly planned, biggest campaign they've ever done. It sounded
strange to describe a restock campaign as that, but it
was quite clear they were trying to make up for
(21:10):
the canceled campaign.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Yeah it was.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And what I found very odd was the actual concept
of this video. So the new video campaign slogan was
rise above. And the video starts out with Sarah driving
in a g wagon and she flicks around on the
radio channel and there's a news report saying good afternoon.
She then flicks to another channel that says.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
God comefully she actually wore that, which he.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Is so canceled.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Sarah then struts into this garage past a flickering TV
that has Sarah's Day's campaign on the TV screen. She
walks up to this motorbike and then is shown waving
flags as two motorcycles speed pass and do big jumps
on their bikes. There's a lot of fire, which to
me suggests this rising from the ASHES messaging. And one
(21:55):
noticeable addition to the campaign are the models Kate Jones
and Lola tomp So. Kate is a curve model and
content creator. She's known as Dedicated Lifestyles on Instagram and
it has one hundred and eighty five thousand followers, while
Lola Thompson is a black model, dancer and content creator
with one hundred and eleven thousand Instagram followers and one
(22:16):
hundred and thirty thousand on TikTok, Sophie, did you think
it was a deliberate move to have more inclusive models
in this campaign?
Speaker 4 (22:23):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
This was a deliberate move, and I think after the backlash,
Sarah needed to be more inclusive in the campaign. But
it just made it feel really awkward and tokenistic. There
was it was very performative.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah, I did find it really awkward. I do remember
that many people were surprised that Kate and Lola agreed
to be in the ad, but to be fair, it
was a big opportunity for their modeling careers.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
And for Kate and Lola, it was an opportunity for
them to reach out to a section of Sarah's audience
who probably hasn't felt heard or seen before.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Now, at the end of the vlog, when Sarah and
Kurt throw to the finish clip of the video, Kurt
looks visibly agitated and he makes what appears to be
a snide remark, saying enjoy rise above. Now. Interestingly, in
this part of the video, I noticed that there was
an awkward cut which makes it seem like Kurt was
actually edited and that what he said in full wasn't
included in the video. To me, the messaging was all
(23:19):
about rising above the backlash they received, and I think
it was a strange concept to follow and came across
as very petty and unremorseful. This campaign had to be
reshot because of cultural appropriation. Don't use this as an
opportunity to talk about your own agenda.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
It does.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
It doesn't come across that they're very remorseful or sorry
for what they did.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, it was almost like they were the victims in
the situation because they had to reshoot a campaign. Now,
Sarah's horror year wasn't done yet, if you can believe it.
Sarah's final major scandal for twenty twenty was sparked by
missing rock and pillow inserts.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
On the sixteenth of November twenty twenty, Sarah decided to
puply name and shame small business Sabi and Soul under
the guise of helping others. She shared a total of
thirteen Instagram stories where she alleged that the brand had
debited one hundred dollars from her account but not delivered
the three Moroccan cushion inserts she had ordered. Sarah provided
(24:17):
screenshots that showed she had placed the order on the
fifteenth of October, alongside unanswered follow up emails and Instagram
dms to Sabi and Seoul. After sharing the apparent receipts,
Sarah finished up by writing, so now I'm just like,
okay cool. Was that a scam or She then went
on to say it wasn't about the money, because she
(24:39):
is financially comfortable, but it's about the customers who saved
up their menial wages only to be scammed. She said,
I remember working in a fast food job getting paid
around twelve dollars an hour. If this happened to me,
I would have been so devastated that essentially a ten
hour shift had gone down the drain. Thank god, she's
looking up for the little guys, isn't it. She went
(24:59):
on to say. Anyway, I'm genuinely not doing this to
hate on that brand. I'm just sharing my frustration of
this brand's negligence and lack of customer care. I could
never imagine doing this to my ebook Activewear, Body Bloom,
First Protein Pity Party, or Butter Me Up customers. Humble
Brag I put so much effort, time and care into
customer service and the teams that run them on my
(25:21):
end that I simply cannot understand when a brand chooses
to go mia on emails dispatching, but yet continues to
take people's money with nothing in return. That's just fraud,
my friend.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I found it really amusing that Sarah had to itemize
each individual product she has sold with Trepeka and Lebang
to make herself sound more important. As you said, it
was a bit of a humble brag. It's a strange
flex though, because apart from her ebook, all of the
products that she listed are owned by separate businesses who
have their own customer service team, so she's got nothing
(25:53):
to do with that process.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
And as for her ebook, the customer.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Service is taken care by the company that created it,
which is Hello Hello Studios. So a very strange brag.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
And Sarah was quick to update her followers that she
wasn't the only one who had been scammed by Sabi
and Soul. She claimed that she had received over twenty
dms from her followers, claiming they had also fallen victim
to the small business. She ended up sharing three of
the dms she received. It is important to note that
she blurred out the senders identifying features. You could see
(26:25):
that Sarah had responded personally to their messages. One of
the messages said, I just ordered off them. I bought
some pillows intending to give them to my mum for Christmas.
I'm only thirteen and I worked for that money.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
I think it was this screenshot which had people quite confused,
because they're like, how does a thirteen year old have
a debit card or access to PayPal? You've got to
be eighteen to have a PayPal account. And people started thinking, well,
maybe Sarah's Day Stands are just coming up with these
fake claims to actually talk to her, because she was
responding individually to these people's dms. Now, it wasn't long
(26:59):
until Sarah's Stands had flooded Sabi and Soul's Instagram account
with hate. There were negative comments on nearly every single
one of Sabi and Soul's posts, with people writing scam
or scammers, and people also began claiming that they had
experienced bad customer service too. Interestingly, the comment section was
a mix of Sarah's Stands and Sarah's Day haters. Now,
(27:21):
the owner of Sabian Stole went on the defense and
started responding to the hate. She wrote, if everyone from
Sarah's Day's followers could please cease messaging me while I
resolved this with Sarah. There has simply been a huge
misunderstanding here. I will explain more soon, but there is
no scam, just a genuine human error now. The business
went on to call Sarah's claims slanderous and misinformed. The
(27:43):
owner also hit back at people's claims of being scammed,
writing people are desperate for attention from influencers, unfortunately saying
me too.
Speaker 6 (27:52):
Now.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
The owner also challenged those claiming that they were scammed,
asking them to provide details around their identification so she
could look into the system. There was a particular person
from South Africa who was a nurse that she looked
up and said that there was no record of her
ever purchasing, so a lot of people were confused if
these were actual customers or just Sarah's stans trying to
(28:13):
get Sarah's attention.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
The owner of Sabi and Soul also shared that it
stated on the Frequently Asked Questions page that as of
August twenty twenty, cushion inserts had to be purchased with
cushion covers, and those who purchased only inserts would have
their orders automatically canceled due to limited stock. Unfortunately, this
information was not available on the individual product page, but
(28:36):
was added the day Sarah called out the brand. Now,
seeing if Sarah only ordered pillow inserts, it appears her
order was automatically canceled the moment she placed it. However,
there weren't any follow up customer service emails to let
her know that this was the case, or any replies
to her follow up emails. After all of the backlash,
Sarah ended up deleting her Instagram stories and shared an update.
(29:00):
She wrote, Okay, I've written this post numerous times, but
let me get straight to the point. I've decided to
delete my previous stories about how money was taken out
of my account for a product I never received. I
made an online purchase for our homewares. I stand by
everything I said, and I don't want any other customers
falling victim to this. But I've seen the negativity it
has created on this brand's page and that doesn't sit
(29:23):
well with me. I just don't like that kind of
commenting and language. I value honesty, kindness, and compassion, and
I am now practicing the third. Yes, the money was
taken out of my account and the issue remains, but
I have this platform to promote kindness and love above
anything else. Yes, I feel a responsibility to spread awareness
and protect others from potentially having the same issues as me,
(29:45):
But I want to spread happiness even more. Anyway, It's
all good, guys. Let's just be good people. Research before
you purchase online, and don't leave hate comments no matter
what the circumstances.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Jeez, that's a very interesting update from Sarah.
Speaker 4 (29:59):
Now.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
We covered this story on our podcast at the time,
and we ended up following up with the owner of
Sabi and Sal to hear her side.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
Of the story.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Now, she was willing to share a few details with us,
but she did say she was taking legal action against Sarah,
so couldn't say too much. She did share a screenshot
with us, though, which appeared to show that she had
given Sarah a refund on the day that Sarah had
purchased the pillow insert, which was on October fifteenth. Looking
back at this drama, it just shows how sure you
(30:27):
need to be as an influencer before you start calling
out a brand because there's no denying that the customer
service was very poor and the communication should have been
a lot better. However, the fact that Sarah had received
a refund immediately and didn't bother to check her account
before calling out the business publicly is really terrible, I know,
especially labeling the brand as a fraud and scammer. It's
(30:50):
just affametory and I'd love to know if the brand
ended up taking legal action against Sarah.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yeah, particularly because at the time, Sarah had one point
one million followers on Instagram, and by sagging Sabi and
Soul in her stories and saying that she'd been scammed,
she literally directed one point one million people over to
their Instagram account as retribution. And she would have known,
as Stanz would cause drama and that's probably why she
tagged them.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Oh it's just crazy to think how much damage this
actually caused this small brand, And when you think about
the fact that Sarah's job is to influence people and
she literally sent people after this brand, it's really heartbreaking.
I mean, at the time, we were in the midst
of COVID, small businesses were really struggling to stay afloat,
and then something like this happens for this brand. It
(31:35):
appears that Sabi and Soul have sadly shut down, since
their Instagram page hasn't been updated since March twenty twenty,
and their online store no longer exists. This was a
one woman show that was trying to operate during COVID,
and from a PR perspective, it is just such a
shame that the owner didn't notice that Sarah had placed
an order, because it really could have been turned into
(31:56):
great brand exposure. A lot of people do follow Sarah
for her style.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Obviously she talks a lot about her home renovations, and
it could have been something where it could have kept
her business afloat and really got her name out there.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
I do really question Sarah's claims that she was trying
to warn her followers.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Sarbi and Soul was a small.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Business, which we have mentioned several times. I mean, they
only had around two thousand followers on Instagram. It's not
this big business that a lot of people were going
to get scanned by. And I stand by what I
said back in the podcast in twenty twenty that I
think it was immature and reckless of Sarah to call
out the brand yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
And the owner of Sabi and Soeul they did share
with us back in twenty twenty that Sarah had purchased
the cushion inserts through PayPal, and PayPal is of course
renowned for its scam protection because there's a simple process
you can go through to get a refund. So I
don't understand why she didn't do that instead of publicly
slamming a small business during COVID.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I did have a laugh because I remember back in
twenty twenty that taddle Life suggested starting a go fund
Me page to help fund Sabi and sols legal claims
against Sarah.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
I would love to know what happened.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
If the owner of Sabian Soul is listening, please reach
out to us, so if anyone knows.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Any more about it, I would love to know.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
How do you come back from the worst year of
your life when the brand you build has been battered
and your army of followers have turned to detractors. In
next week's final installment, we cover Sarah's attempt at a rebrand,
how the Wellness Warrior tried to evolve into a wholesome,
pilates loving mum with strong Christian roots with lucrative brand
deals to compete for, and a hungry community of new
(33:31):
mums yearning for connection. Mummy blogging is a high stakes
business venture, but what happens when your kids start becoming
content and a heartbreaking diagnosis makes.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
You evaluate at all. That's on next week's final installment.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
This podcast was recorded on the traditional land of the
Ganna people of the Adelaide Planes. We pay respect to
elders past and present. If you are enjoying this series
on Outspoken Plus, we would love to see you post
it on your Instagram story.
Episode three, The Sees Scandals, Sarah Stevenson's popularity was through
the roof, fresh from activating hashtag milflife after the birth
of her son Fox Ocean, Sarah had managed to sidestep
Heer Sin three scandal, replacing controversy with baby Spam and
their new house. Rnos and the masses were loving it.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
But no one could have predicted what twenty twenty would
hold for Sarah's day, let alone the world.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
There are fears more than a thousand people could be
infected with the deadly SARS like virus in China. The
World Health Organization has declared coronavirus a global pandemic.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
The COVID nineteen pandemic changed life as we knew it.
Locked inside our homes with more free time than ever,
public sentiment towards influences began to change and cancel culture
took hold. The same year, the Black Lives Matter movement
shook the world, with protests breaking out across the globe
following the murder of George Floyd.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Cities across the United States remained in a state of
high tension tonight, as the country braces itself for another
wave of protests over the death of George Floyd.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Twenty twenty was a horror year for everyone, but for
Sarah it was the year she got canceled as three
of her biggest controversies played out in front of a
captive audience in Lockdown.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
We are journalist Amy Kay and Sophie Torbert and this
is outspoken Plus in.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Episode two, we Left You.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
In late twenty nineteen, in Australia, bushfires were ravishing the country.
The new year brought further devastation as fires continued to
burn out of control.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia are waking up
to widespread fire damage. We know properties have been lost,
we know many towns are without power, but the true
extent is being assessed right now.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
More than forty six million acres were burnt during the
twenty nineteen and twenty twenty bushfires, and devastatingly, thirty four
people were killed and nearly three billion animals.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Lost their lives or were placed.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
All anyone could talk about was what could be done
to help. Influencers and brands jumped on the cause and
began sharing ways followers could help those impacted. I remember
at the time Mitch Orville was getting a lot of
attention because he managed to raise over two hundred and
seventy thousand dollars alongside his brand Hooded Smile, and Sarah's
Day was quick to follow this trend. In November, she
(02:23):
announced that one dollar from each of her products sold
on the Bang Body would go towards a Saint Vincent
Bushfire appeal Now. To put that donation into perspective, Sarah's
Lebang Body products ranged from sixty ninety five to fifty
eight ninety five now. The backlash was swift. People labeled Sarah's.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Promotion as an underwhelming offer of charity, while others said
one dollar per product was a cop out. Another commenter wrote,
go fifty percent or one hundred percent of proceeds for
forty eight hours to be genuine. It's currently a cheap
trick to boost profit now.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Sarah jumped onto her stories on the afternoon of the
fundraiser announcement, complaining that she couldn't train because she was
receiving so much hate.
Speaker 4 (03:04):
Here's what she said.
Speaker 5 (03:05):
The amount of hate we just got is actually disgusting.
Like we were trying to do something fun that was
going to give back to everyone, and yeah, I'm really
disappointed in like twenty percent of the people because this
was coming from a really honest, authentic giving place, like
bushfires is something really real and like personal in my family.
(03:28):
And when Labang called me with the idea, I was like, Yeah,
why would I say no? Like this is awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Sarah was late slam for her use of the word fun,
which people found insensitive and said she didn't understand the issue.
Sarah went on to say this this.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
Is a classic example of your damned if you do,
you're damned if you don't. Like if I hadn't done
anything with my products to support the Bushfire Foundation, I
would have got hate. If I promote one hundred percent
of the profits, I still get hate for promoting my products.
We say a dollar activation, still get hate.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
The story made mainstream media and the campaign was stopped,
with no party disclosing if the money raise was donated. Now,
off the back of this initial failed campaign, Sarah launched
a three day e book sale to raise money for
bush fire relief charities.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
The three charities.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Chosen were Food Bank Australia, New South Wales, Rural Fire Service,
Port Macquarie, Kohala Hospital and.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
The Salvation Army.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
As part of the promotion, Sarah discounted her ebooks by
twenty percent, and this time she said she would donate
one hundred percent of the sales made to her four
nominated charities. Now, Sarah announced that the sale raised a
whopping three hundred and ninety one thousand, six hundred and
sixty dollars, with the profits said to be split equally
between the four charities.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Now.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Rather than being met with great fanfare like Mitch Aorble,
Sarah's fans started getting agitated when she did not provide
an update on the status of the donation. So six
days after the sale ended, Sarah released a vlog where
she briefly touched on the fundraiser. She explained that she
had emailed the charities to let them know they would
be receiving a huge donation and asked them how to
(05:07):
go about transferring the money to them. Now despite confirming
she was in talks with the four charities, a member
of gossip forum Guru Gossip, she had an open letter
to Sarah where they revealed they had reported her to
scam Watch for not showing receipts of the donations she made.
The user wrote, I believe you will donate and this
was a genuine good deed you were doing. But this
(05:28):
is just a gentle nudge in the right direction. It's
too much money and too important a cause for you
not to have posted an update yet, especially when other
influencers have now. This letter spurred on others to start
contacting the Australian media publications who had covered the initial
story about the one dollar bushfire appeal.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
It's safe to say by now the pressure was mounting
on Sarah. People were beginning to lash out on Instagram,
with many comments getting swiftly deleted. This stress led to
Sarah having a complete meltdown in her outside of a
bank ten days after the fundraiser had ended. So the
day prior, she had updated her followers saying that she
was unable to donate to the Koala Hospital because her
(06:10):
bank wouldn't allow her to make a transaction that big.
So the following day, Sarah complained the bank had only
let her transfer money to two of the four charities
because of the transfer limit, and that she would need
to come back the next day. It's important to note
that Sarah did visit the bank at four pm when
it was closing. She said I'm just trying to do
this nice thing and donate all this money for my
(06:31):
country and the animals. Sarah went on to complain that
she'd been trying to pay everyone for over a week,
but none of the charities were accepting the bank transfers
because the daily limit on her account was one hundred
thousand dollars. Now, when you consider that Sarah was trying
to transfer each charity around eighty nine thousand dollars, wouldn't
have only taken her four days to finalize these transfers.
Speaker 4 (06:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
I think the fact that she was complaining and putting
a lot of the blame on the charities really caused
a sour taste in people's mind. I mean, obviously it
sounds like it was a bit of a complex process
to do, but I think, don't share the struggles.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
That you're having with online. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
So, on the twenty second of January, five days after
Sarah's meltdown at the bank, Sarah confirmed that all four
charities had received their donations. Sarah shared a screenshot of
handwritten calculations and wrote, all charities have received their donations?
Were who When I contacted the charities to let them
know they'd be getting eighty nine thousand, thirteen dollars and
(07:29):
seventy five cents. They were absolutely overwhelmed and so grateful.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Originally some people were complaining that the sum Sarah provided
didn't add up, but they were forgetting about the GST.
So it's important to note that according to a chartered
tax accountant, Sarah did everything completely within the rules of
the tax legislation in Australia.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
It's very likely that she would.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Have an accountant providing advice on how to maximize their
profit and cash. So in this case, what people appeared
to have an issue with is with Sarah promoting that
she would donate one hundred percent of sales rather than
saying one hundred percent of profits. I mean, I think
it's a bit tit for tat at this stage.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, in this instance, I do feel like people were
very harsh on Sarah, considering that she did raise such
a huge amount of money for charity. I do think
people are forgetting that there were so many celebrities and
influencers jumping in and trying to raise money without actually
thinking through the process of how they would end up
transferring such a huge amount of money to a charity.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
I think if this was a.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
Campaign that she had set up with a lot of
preparation time, it would have been fair to sort of
launch this criticism at her, But considering it was something
done on the fly, I do think it was a
little bit unfair.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I think it is really interesting to look back at
this scandal three years on when you're removed from the
emotions of the situation. So in times of crisis, when
people feel out of control, generally they do look for
someone to blame, and at the time, influencers around Australia
really were being put under the microscope by sections of
the Internet who were trying to determine whether or not
(09:00):
influencers were trying to help out out of the goodness
of their hearts, or whether they saw this situation as
an opportunity for self promotion and being charitable at the
end of the day is good for your brand, but
it's also something I would like to think that a
lot of people genuinely do to help out and make
a difference. And I personally felt uncomfortable by the backlash
(09:21):
that was thrown at Sarah during this time because, as
you say, Kate, she did use her platform to raise
over three hundred thousand dollars for animals and communities in need.
And I'm sure if she didn't use her platform, she
would have copt the same amount of flack and abuse.
And it sort of was a situation at the time
you're either damned if you do damned if you don't.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, I actually remember she did say that. And it's
important to remember that whilst influencers may come across as
these huge entities, most of the time they are individuals
running startups which don't have the support of a professional
team or strategists or lawyers behind them helping them make
these big business decisions. And I think there's a lot
of talk about how Sarah is in a bit of
a cronulla bubble, and I don't think equips herself with
(10:01):
the right team. She often employs friends or relatives, and
I think this is a situation where perhaps she didn't
have the right guidance in place.
Speaker 6 (10:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
And in terms of the criticism about her not donating
the money quick enough, I think over time it has
become quite evident that donating large sums of money isn't
as easy as it looks. And this was the case
for Australian comedian Celeste Barber, who raised fifty one point
three million dollars in a record breaking Facebook fundraiser for
the New South Wales Rural Fire Service and brigades donation funds.
(10:32):
So Celess said that as donations grew and grew, she
attracted a fuck ton of people telling her what she
should do with it. And things got really complicated when
the deed which governed the New South Wales Rural Fire
Service Trust outlined that money donated could only be spent
on purchasing and maintaining equipment, training and administration cost So
(10:54):
this meant that the money wasn't really allowed to go
directly to those who had been impacted by the fire.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
And I'm sure Celeste never imagined that she would have
raised that amount of money, and I'm assuming donors would
have thought that she would have the ability to allocate
funds to other bushfire charities if necessary. Now there was
a court case and the court ruled that money could
be given to the families of Fullen firefighters and used
for trauma counseling, but could not be given to charities
(11:20):
like the Australian Red Cross or animal welfare groups, which
upset many of those who donated their money. One month later,
Sarah's bushfire fundraiser controversy was all but forgotten as the
COVID pandemic took over our lives.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
The World Health Organization has declared coronavirus a global pandemic.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
As our lives ascended into the unknown. With stay at
home orders and five kilometer radius parameters in place, we
became increasingly infuriated by anyone breaking the rules or those
in positions of privilege complaining about being confined to their mansions.
Influencer behavior became a.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Major talking point.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
We were beginning to question whether influencers were doing enough
to deserve the privileges bestowed.
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Upon them now.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
On the twenty fifth of May twenty twenty, George Floyd,
a black man living in Minneapolis, was murdered by police
officer Derek Sharvin. After being handcuffed and pinned to the ground,
Floyd repeatedly told the police officer he could not breathe
as the officer knelt on his neck. The horrific event
was captured on camera, sparking protests around the world.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Chaos, violence, fire, and looty unfolding on the streets of Minneapolis.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Black matters were at the forefront of the public psyche.
We were just two months into the pandemic and tensions
were boiling over. Social media was a wash with support
for the Black Lives Matter movement, with black tile shared
on June second, twenty twenty to show solidarity for the
protests and riots happening in the US.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Meanwhile, back in Cronulla, Sarah was getting set to launch
her third active web collaboration with White Fox Boutique. The
campaign was called Reboot and was based around the idea
that her line was being elevated. Sarah took followers along
for the ride, capturing behind the scenes footage of her
campaign shoot. Followers were left astounded when Sarah revealed how
(13:12):
she had been styled. She was unrecognizable. Her short blonde
hair had been woven into thick fluot braids, and she
was quickly accused of cultural appropriation.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Now, for those who are unsure, cultural appropriation occurs when
members of a majority group adopt cultural elements of a
minority group in an exploitative, disrespectful, stereotypical way. This can
include a hairstyle, piece of clothing, and a manner of speaking. Now,
to put all of this into context. Just three days
after the murder of George Floyd, Sarah's Day was forced
(13:45):
to pull her new reboot activewear campaign. She did decide
to reshoot the campaign with a different look a couple
of days later. Now, I remember the moment I saw
Sarah's hairstyle on Instagram. I instantly screenshot it and sent
it to you, because I couldn't believe that she didn't
foresee that this would be a problem, especially considering what
(14:05):
was going on in the world.
Speaker 4 (14:06):
It was just so tone deaf.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Yeah, the fact that Sarah's Day, as well as the
White Fox boutique team thought that this was acceptable really
shocked me.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
How did no one flag this with her?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Oh? I mean, the hairstyle was just highly inappropriate. West
African woman Safie, who chose not to give her last name,
gave some really insightful comments to news dot Com about
the incident because at the time, there seemed.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
To be a real divide.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
There were those who were deeply offended and then those
who didn't understand the gravity of the situation. So Safie said,
for her, it came down to differentiating cultural appropriation and
cultural appreciation. She said, sadly, so many people can't tell
the difference. She explained that what Sarah did was take
this hairstyle, capitalize on her refer to it as ghetto,
(14:54):
a neglect to pay proper homage or acknowledge that she
was inspired by women of color. She continued to quite simply,
she used a significant part of our culture to make
money off it. This is what so many black women
of color, like myself class as cultural appropriation. Had she
done her research and understood the cultural significance of this hairstyle,
(15:14):
it would be considered cultural appreciation, but she didn't.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Now Following the backlash online, Sarah released a three hundred
and eighty word apology on her Instagram feed alongside a
series of Instagram stories to her one point one million followers.
Sarah apologized for the hairstyle, causing any offense, and explained
why she made the decision to wear braids. She basically
said it was her idea to wear braids because she
(15:39):
always wears them and wanted to incorporate Coachella and festival
vibes into the campaign.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Let's throw to what she.
Speaker 5 (15:46):
Said, so specifically, we need to talk about the braids
because this is where the controversy comes and the accusations
and issue of cultural appropriation. So in the first and
in no way I've said this in the caption, I'm
not made excuses or trying to justify. I'm literally just
trying to give reasoning because everyone's asking me questions, like
(16:06):
even if they're mean questions, Everyone's like, why the f
do you think it's okay to wear braids? Like this
is me answering, This is me answering.
Speaker 6 (16:13):
Yeah, this is a very serious topic and like for
us to be put in this category, it's very scary
for us because this is the complete opposite of what
we're about.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
Yeah, I'm I'm like the last person to judge anyone
or to try to be controversial or cultural appropriate, Like
I just want everyone to be happier. What everyone anyway,
I'm derailing. So I was the one who first came
up with the braid idea, and I showed I make
(16:41):
a mood board for everything. I made a Pinterest with
like mostly Coachella stuff. It was like these big braids
and they were pink and it was fun, and so
most of the pictures that I showed everyone were like
Coachella festival.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
It was really fun.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, So that was the pin.
Speaker 6 (16:54):
I had that like electric feel that was tied in
nicely to the whole idea of this campaign that we
sort of up with in the first place.
Speaker 5 (17:01):
And that's the thing. I don't know if I'm just
like not educated.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
In this or it's like I don't know, because not.
Speaker 5 (17:07):
Once did I even think about cultural appropriation. If that
even crossed my mind, I wouldn't have done it, because
you guys know, I hate conflict, I hate controversy. I
don't want to offend anyone. If I thought it would
offend anyone, I would have never, ever, ever, ever done it.
So again not making excuses, but you guys know, I
always wear two braids. Even when I had long blonde extensions,
I got my hair braided, and even now I'm not
(17:30):
gonna lie even doing Yeah, I'd be lying if I
said I completely understood what's okay and what's not okay,
Because even after researching so much, asking people, asking my friends,
of all different cultural backgrounds, of all different races, everyone
has a different opinion, everyone has a different It's a.
Speaker 6 (17:48):
Very fine line. So I don't know.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
So I don't know what's offensive. I don't know what
is cultural. I don't know, so That's why I'm like,
you know what, we had a call.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
With White Fox. White Fox.
Speaker 5 (17:59):
They don't want to offend anyone, Like the whole team
who worked on this campaign are heartbroken. That would put us.
Speaker 6 (18:04):
We worked on it for like three months or so
in the making, and now read for everyone, it's okay.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Initially, many people took Sarah's apology on face value and
accepted that she was ignorant and uneducated. It is important
to note, however, that the apology was not directed at
white people, but at people of color. Therefore, it's not
up to us to accept the apology. Opinions started shifting though,
when it appeared Sarah wasn't as remorseful as she had
made out originally. Firstly, both Sarah and Kirk kept the
(18:34):
sneak peak of the campaign up despite deciding to pull it.
The video included Sarah wearing the braids the evening of
her apology.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
Sarah was also very passive.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Aggressive on her Instagram story about having to reshoot the campaign.
Now it was very clear she was feeling sorry for herself.
She made a snide comment about it apparently being a
tough day for everyone, not just her, to make matters worse,
a screenshot from Sarah's Day's Facebook came unity surfaced where
she was warned of the cultural appropriation weeks before when
she first posted about the campaign to her story. However,
(19:08):
at the time, the post was deleted and deemed as trolling.
Sarah's apology post was also highly moderated. It only had
messages of support. The original comments calling out the hairstyle
as cultural appropriation were also deleted, despite it being an educational,
well balanced discussion. Now, White Fox Boutique did not comment
(19:29):
on the controversy or issue an apology for their involvement,
and I thought this was really poor because it wasn't
solely Sarah's decision to launch the campaign, yet she was
the only one who.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Faced up and apologized to it. Yes, the apology was
not fantastic and it did not seem genuine, But I
find it really strange that White Fox Boutique, which is
a large brand, didn't come out and give a statement
and apologize because they at the end of the day,
they gave the all clear for this. This was their
brand putting out the activewear.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yeah, they were collaborating with Sarah's Day on the project.
You think they'd have a say in the campaign.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
They really seemed to hang her out to dry, which
is really confusing because they still do use her as
the face of many of their campaigns.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Yeah, it was very odd.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Now it didn't take long for people to start piling
on Sarah. It got to the point where Sarah and
her young son Fox were receiving death threats. Receipts also
started coming out of the woodwork. An alleged image of
Sarah's husband Kurt, playing scrabble emerged with a homophobic slur
spelled out on the board. A screenshot of an apparent
Bible verse Sarah shared saying people who don't believe in
(20:37):
God will get COVID also spread around. Despite the backlash,
Sarah's activewear campaign sold out in a matter of minutes,
and in October, they launched a restock of the Reboot collection.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
As part of the.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Restock, they filmed a new video campaign, which Kurt directed,
and of course, Sarah v log behind the scenes of
this campaign. She described the campaign as the most extravagant
and highly planned, biggest campaign they've ever done. It sounded
strange to describe a restock campaign as that, but it
was quite clear they were trying to make up for
(21:10):
the canceled campaign.
Speaker 4 (21:12):
Yeah it was.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
And what I found very odd was the actual concept
of this video. So the new video campaign slogan was
rise above. And the video starts out with Sarah driving
in a g wagon and she flicks around on the
radio channel and there's a news report saying good afternoon.
She then flicks to another channel that says.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
God comefully she actually wore that, which he.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Is so canceled.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Sarah then struts into this garage past a flickering TV
that has Sarah's Day's campaign on the TV screen. She
walks up to this motorbike and then is shown waving
flags as two motorcycles speed pass and do big jumps
on their bikes. There's a lot of fire, which to
me suggests this rising from the ASHES messaging. And one
(21:55):
noticeable addition to the campaign are the models Kate Jones
and Lola tomp So. Kate is a curve model and
content creator. She's known as Dedicated Lifestyles on Instagram and
it has one hundred and eighty five thousand followers, while
Lola Thompson is a black model, dancer and content creator
with one hundred and eleven thousand Instagram followers and one
(22:16):
hundred and thirty thousand on TikTok, Sophie, did you think
it was a deliberate move to have more inclusive models
in this campaign?
Speaker 4 (22:23):
One hundred percent.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
This was a deliberate move, and I think after the backlash,
Sarah needed to be more inclusive in the campaign. But
it just made it feel really awkward and tokenistic. There
was it was very performative.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah, I did find it really awkward. I do remember
that many people were surprised that Kate and Lola agreed
to be in the ad, but to be fair, it
was a big opportunity for their modeling careers.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
And for Kate and Lola, it was an opportunity for
them to reach out to a section of Sarah's audience
who probably hasn't felt heard or seen before.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
Yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Now, at the end of the vlog, when Sarah and
Kurt throw to the finish clip of the video, Kurt
looks visibly agitated and he makes what appears to be
a snide remark, saying enjoy rise above. Now. Interestingly, in
this part of the video, I noticed that there was
an awkward cut which makes it seem like Kurt was
actually edited and that what he said in full wasn't
included in the video. To me, the messaging was all
(23:19):
about rising above the backlash they received, and I think
it was a strange concept to follow and came across
as very petty and unremorseful. This campaign had to be
reshot because of cultural appropriation. Don't use this as an
opportunity to talk about your own agenda.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
It does.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
It doesn't come across that they're very remorseful or sorry
for what they did.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Yeah, it was almost like they were the victims in
the situation because they had to reshoot a campaign. Now,
Sarah's horror year wasn't done yet, if you can believe it.
Sarah's final major scandal for twenty twenty was sparked by
missing rock and pillow inserts.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
On the sixteenth of November twenty twenty, Sarah decided to
puply name and shame small business Sabi and Soul under
the guise of helping others. She shared a total of
thirteen Instagram stories where she alleged that the brand had
debited one hundred dollars from her account but not delivered
the three Moroccan cushion inserts she had ordered. Sarah provided
(24:17):
screenshots that showed she had placed the order on the
fifteenth of October, alongside unanswered follow up emails and Instagram
dms to Sabi and Seoul. After sharing the apparent receipts,
Sarah finished up by writing, so now I'm just like,
okay cool. Was that a scam or She then went
on to say it wasn't about the money, because she
(24:39):
is financially comfortable, but it's about the customers who saved
up their menial wages only to be scammed. She said,
I remember working in a fast food job getting paid
around twelve dollars an hour. If this happened to me,
I would have been so devastated that essentially a ten
hour shift had gone down the drain. Thank god, she's
looking up for the little guys, isn't it. She went
(24:59):
on to say. Anyway, I'm genuinely not doing this to
hate on that brand. I'm just sharing my frustration of
this brand's negligence and lack of customer care. I could
never imagine doing this to my ebook Activewear, Body Bloom,
First Protein Pity Party, or Butter Me Up customers. Humble
Brag I put so much effort, time and care into
customer service and the teams that run them on my
(25:21):
end that I simply cannot understand when a brand chooses
to go mia on emails dispatching, but yet continues to
take people's money with nothing in return. That's just fraud,
my friend.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
I found it really amusing that Sarah had to itemize
each individual product she has sold with Trepeka and Lebang
to make herself sound more important. As you said, it
was a bit of a humble brag. It's a strange
flex though, because apart from her ebook, all of the
products that she listed are owned by separate businesses who
have their own customer service team, so she's got nothing
(25:53):
to do with that process.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
And as for her ebook, the customer.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Service is taken care by the company that created it,
which is Hello Hello Studios. So a very strange brag.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
And Sarah was quick to update her followers that she
wasn't the only one who had been scammed by Sabi
and Soul. She claimed that she had received over twenty
dms from her followers, claiming they had also fallen victim
to the small business. She ended up sharing three of
the dms she received. It is important to note that
she blurred out the senders identifying features. You could see
(26:25):
that Sarah had responded personally to their messages. One of
the messages said, I just ordered off them. I bought
some pillows intending to give them to my mum for Christmas.
I'm only thirteen and I worked for that money.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
I think it was this screenshot which had people quite confused,
because they're like, how does a thirteen year old have
a debit card or access to PayPal? You've got to
be eighteen to have a PayPal account. And people started thinking, well,
maybe Sarah's Day Stands are just coming up with these
fake claims to actually talk to her, because she was
responding individually to these people's dms. Now, it wasn't long
(26:59):
until Sarah's Stands had flooded Sabi and Soul's Instagram account
with hate. There were negative comments on nearly every single
one of Sabi and Soul's posts, with people writing scam
or scammers, and people also began claiming that they had
experienced bad customer service too. Interestingly, the comment section was
a mix of Sarah's Stands and Sarah's Day haters. Now,
(27:21):
the owner of Sabian Stole went on the defense and
started responding to the hate. She wrote, if everyone from
Sarah's Day's followers could please cease messaging me while I
resolved this with Sarah. There has simply been a huge
misunderstanding here. I will explain more soon, but there is
no scam, just a genuine human error now. The business
went on to call Sarah's claims slanderous and misinformed. The
(27:43):
owner also hit back at people's claims of being scammed,
writing people are desperate for attention from influencers, unfortunately saying
me too.
Speaker 6 (27:52):
Now.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
The owner also challenged those claiming that they were scammed,
asking them to provide details around their identification so she
could look into the system. There was a particular person
from South Africa who was a nurse that she looked
up and said that there was no record of her
ever purchasing, so a lot of people were confused if
these were actual customers or just Sarah's stans trying to
(28:13):
get Sarah's attention.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
The owner of Sabi and Soul also shared that it
stated on the Frequently Asked Questions page that as of
August twenty twenty, cushion inserts had to be purchased with
cushion covers, and those who purchased only inserts would have
their orders automatically canceled due to limited stock. Unfortunately, this
information was not available on the individual product page, but
(28:36):
was added the day Sarah called out the brand. Now,
seeing if Sarah only ordered pillow inserts, it appears her
order was automatically canceled the moment she placed it. However,
there weren't any follow up customer service emails to let
her know that this was the case, or any replies
to her follow up emails. After all of the backlash,
Sarah ended up deleting her Instagram stories and shared an update.
(29:00):
She wrote, Okay, I've written this post numerous times, but
let me get straight to the point. I've decided to
delete my previous stories about how money was taken out
of my account for a product I never received. I
made an online purchase for our homewares. I stand by
everything I said, and I don't want any other customers
falling victim to this. But I've seen the negativity it
has created on this brand's page and that doesn't sit
(29:23):
well with me. I just don't like that kind of
commenting and language. I value honesty, kindness, and compassion, and
I am now practicing the third. Yes, the money was
taken out of my account and the issue remains, but
I have this platform to promote kindness and love above
anything else. Yes, I feel a responsibility to spread awareness
and protect others from potentially having the same issues as me,
(29:45):
But I want to spread happiness even more. Anyway, It's
all good, guys. Let's just be good people. Research before
you purchase online, and don't leave hate comments no matter
what the circumstances.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Jeez, that's a very interesting update from Sarah.
Speaker 4 (29:59):
Now.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
We covered this story on our podcast at the time,
and we ended up following up with the owner of
Sabi and Sal to hear her side.
Speaker 4 (30:06):
Of the story.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Now, she was willing to share a few details with us,
but she did say she was taking legal action against Sarah,
so couldn't say too much. She did share a screenshot
with us, though, which appeared to show that she had
given Sarah a refund on the day that Sarah had
purchased the pillow insert, which was on October fifteenth. Looking
back at this drama, it just shows how sure you
(30:27):
need to be as an influencer before you start calling
out a brand because there's no denying that the customer
service was very poor and the communication should have been
a lot better. However, the fact that Sarah had received
a refund immediately and didn't bother to check her account
before calling out the business publicly is really terrible, I know,
especially labeling the brand as a fraud and scammer. It's
(30:50):
just affametory and I'd love to know if the brand
ended up taking legal action against Sarah.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yeah, particularly because at the time, Sarah had one point
one million followers on Instagram, and by sagging Sabi and
Soul in her stories and saying that she'd been scammed,
she literally directed one point one million people over to
their Instagram account as retribution. And she would have known,
as Stanz would cause drama and that's probably why she
tagged them.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Oh it's just crazy to think how much damage this
actually caused this small brand, And when you think about
the fact that Sarah's job is to influence people and
she literally sent people after this brand, it's really heartbreaking.
I mean, at the time, we were in the midst
of COVID, small businesses were really struggling to stay afloat,
and then something like this happens for this brand. It
(31:35):
appears that Sabi and Soul have sadly shut down, since
their Instagram page hasn't been updated since March twenty twenty,
and their online store no longer exists. This was a
one woman show that was trying to operate during COVID,
and from a PR perspective, it is just such a
shame that the owner didn't notice that Sarah had placed
an order, because it really could have been turned into
(31:56):
great brand exposure. A lot of people do follow Sarah
for her style.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Obviously she talks a lot about her home renovations, and
it could have been something where it could have kept
her business afloat and really got her name out there.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
I do really question Sarah's claims that she was trying
to warn her followers.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Sarbi and Soul was a small.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Business, which we have mentioned several times. I mean, they
only had around two thousand followers on Instagram. It's not
this big business that a lot of people were going
to get scanned by. And I stand by what I
said back in the podcast in twenty twenty that I
think it was immature and reckless of Sarah to call
out the brand yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
And the owner of Sabi and Soeul they did share
with us back in twenty twenty that Sarah had purchased
the cushion inserts through PayPal, and PayPal is of course
renowned for its scam protection because there's a simple process
you can go through to get a refund. So I
don't understand why she didn't do that instead of publicly
slamming a small business during COVID.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I did have a laugh because I remember back in
twenty twenty that taddle Life suggested starting a go fund
Me page to help fund Sabi and sols legal claims
against Sarah.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
I would love to know what happened.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
If the owner of Sabian Soul is listening, please reach
out to us, so if anyone knows.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Any more about it, I would love to know.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
How do you come back from the worst year of
your life when the brand you build has been battered
and your army of followers have turned to detractors. In
next week's final installment, we cover Sarah's attempt at a rebrand,
how the Wellness Warrior tried to evolve into a wholesome,
pilates loving mum with strong Christian roots with lucrative brand
deals to compete for, and a hungry community of new
(33:31):
mums yearning for connection. Mummy blogging is a high stakes
business venture, but what happens when your kids start becoming
content and a heartbreaking diagnosis makes.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
You evaluate at all. That's on next week's final installment.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
This podcast was recorded on the traditional land of the
Ganna people of the Adelaide Planes. We pay respect to
elders past and present. If you are enjoying this series
on Outspoken Plus, we would love to see you post
it on your Instagram story.
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