Actors, models and influencers have come under fire on social media for attending a sponsored vacation to Saudi Arabia after Instagram page Diet Prada revealed that attendees of the trip are receiving six-figure sums, in exchange for positive Instagram posts with geotagged locations.
Along with Diet Prada, models Teddy Quinlavin and Emily Ratajkowski have slammed the celebrities on the trip, which has seen Ryan Phillippe, Wilmer Valderrama, Joan Smalls, Armi Hammer, Sofia Richie, Jourdan Dunn and many more attend Riyadh’s inaugural MDL Beast electronic music festival, ignoring the country’s human rights crisis.
Yesterday, Emily posted: “It is very important to me to make clear my support for the rights of women, the LGBTQ community, freedom of expression and the right to a free press. I hope coming forward on this brings more attention to the injustices happening there”.
Actor Ryan Phillippe, who is currently in Saudi Arabia on this trip, has lashed out at critics, telling people to “f**k off”, and labelling people losers and morons for questioning him.
Calling it “an awesome place to visit”, Ryan snapped at one commenter: “your country is without fault? Cool. Never known of one”, and arguing that “progress and change take time”.
When another person commented on the lack of human rights in the country, Ryan responded “yes it does. Read something recent”, and told another person “you know nothing. Go see Cats“.
Ryan has continued posting photos from his trip, so we can only expect this mess to continue unfolding.
“Quit virtue signaling, Princess,” he tells another commenter asking how much he’s getting paid for these posts. pic.twitter.com/fliS8XArBr
— Ξvan Ross Katz (@evanrosskatz) December 22, 2019
