Celebrities including Armie Hammer, Ed Westwick, Ryan Phillipe and Wilmer Valderrama, and models like Alessandra Ambrosio, Halima Aden and Joan Smalls made their to the MDL Beast music festival in Saudi Arabia.
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Now, after countless social media posts from the event that was held over the weekend in Riyadh, those who attended and promoted it are being criticised for their participation, reported The Guardian.
The criticism stems from Saudi Arabia's human right's record with many taking to social media to call out celebs for their paid involvement in pushing an 'image rehab' for the Kingdom.
Influencers who have hundreds and thousands of followers accepted paid trips to Saudi Arabia in order to promote a tourist-friendly image of the country which many say "is far from reality".
Hammer took to Instagram to share a lengthy post about his experience at the MDL Beast and attracted a ton of criticism for promoting the event. "What I just witnessed was truly special. I saw Saudi men and women ecstatic about an event that they never thought they would ever see in their lifetimes. It felt like a cultural shift," he wrote.
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Phillip Picardi, former digital editorial director for Teen Vogue also spoke out. "Profoundly disappointed to see people on my Instagram feed who traveled to Saudi Arabia as part of their government’s image rehabilitation campaign," he said on Instagram.
Instagram critic Diet Prada made a lengthy post detailing all the reasons why this kind of paid promotion was shameless on the influencers' end.
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"What’s worse than an all-white influencer trip? Cashing big fat checks in exchange for content-creation (aka propaganda) to rehabilitate the image of Saudi Arabia, a country said to be causing 'the world’s worst humanitarian crisis', according to the United Nations," wrote Diet Prada before revealing that "six-figure sums were offered for attendance and geo-tagged posts."
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Model Emily Ratajkowski, however, turned down the opportunity to attend the festival in light of the human right's issues linked to Saudi Arabia.
“It is very important to me to make my support clear for the rights of women and other marginalised communities, freedom of expression and the right to a free press. I hope coming forward on this brings more attention to the injustices happening there”, said Ratajkowski in a statement to Diet Prada.
The Saudi Kingdom is currently working hard to rehabilitate its image and billions are being spent to promote tourism.
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