Rihanna stopped just short of scalping Snapchat on Thursday, delivering a scathing response via Instagram to a tasteless, offensive ad that appeared on the Snapchat app asking if users would rather “slap Rihanna or punch Chris Brown.”
Now it looks like Rihanna didn’t just snatch Snapchat’s wig; she also seized its stock value.
CNBC reports that after Rihanna posted her response on Snapchat’s rival platform Instagram, Snapchat shares dropped as much as 5 percent. Estimates vary on how much the app lost in market capitalization Thursday, but it appears to be somewhere in the range of $600 million to $1 billion.
Didn’t she tell you that she was a savage?
Rihanna’s rih-sponse (sorry, I’m not sorry) on Instagram was widely referenced and shared on social media. Users also joked about deleting the app:
Even Joe Budden’s messy ass got involved:
Hell, I got rid of Snapchat over a year ago, and I was this close to redownloading the app just so I could delete it again, per my president’s orders.
In her response, Rihanna addressed Snapchat directly:
Now SNAPCHAT I know you already know you ain’t my fav app out there! But I’m just trying to figure out what the point was with this mess! I’d love to call it ignorance, but I know you ain’t that dumb!” the singer said on Instagram on Thursday. ...
This isn’t about my personal feelings, cause I don’t have much of them...but all the women, children and men that have been victims of [domestic violence] in the past and especially the ones who haven’t made it out yet ...you let us down! Shame on you. Throw the whole app-oligy away.
At last count, Rihanna has 61 million followers on Instagram.
After apologizing on Monday for the ad, which Snapchat says was “reviewed and approved in error,” the company was forced to say it was sorry again on Thursday.
“This advertisement is disgusting and never should have appeared on our service. We are so sorry we made the terrible mistake of allowing it through our review process. We are investigating how that happened so that we can make sure it never happens again,” a Snapchat spokesperson wrote to CNBC.
RIP, Snapchat.