Doritos severs ties with transgender influencer in Spain following online boycott threat

Doritos said Tuesday that it has ended a social media campaign with Samantha Hudson, a transgender influencer in Spain. Right-leaning accounts on social media had called for a boycott, citing past comments Hudson was alleged to have made on social media.

Hudson, 24, a singer with 396,000 followers on Instagram, had posted a 50-second branded video on Instagram for a Doritos Spain campaign called “Crunch Talks.” It’s unclear when the video went up; as of Monday afternoon it had been removed from Hudson’s page. No other posts on her Instagram account feature promotion of the brand.

Efforts to boycott Doritos online ramped up Monday and Tuesday, when the hashtag #BoycottDoritos circulated on X. Many right-wing accounts, which re-shared the original Doritos promotional video, homed in on posts Hudson is alleged to have made on the platform when she was 15, which they described as offensive.

Hudson was reported to have tweeted in 2015 about wanting to do “depraved” things with a 12-year-old girl, according to Rolling Stone. NBC News has not seen the original posts on social media, and they appear to have been removed from X. Screenshots of the alleged posts resurfaced on X, where they were recirculated.

Hudson reportedly later expressed remorse for the past tweets, according to Rolling Stone’s translation of her past posts on X. However, it appears the post addressing her past comments, which was made in 2021, is no longer available on her page.

Others online pointed out that Hudson has been critical of the right wing in Spain. In an interview clip that resurfaced, she appears to say she advocates “for the abolition to destroy and eliminate the traditional monogamous nuclear family,” according to a translation of the video from Spanish to English.

Doritos, a PepsiCo brand, said Tuesday in a statement to NBC News that it ended its campaign with Hudson after it was made aware of the past tweets.

“We [Doritos Spain] recently created a content series with Samantha Hudson, a local influencer. After the campaign started, we were made aware of Samantha’s deleted Tweets from around 2015,” it said. “We have ended the relationship and stopped all related campaign activity due to the comments. We strongly condemn words or actions that promote violence or sexism of any kind.”

Hudson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. She has also not publicly weighed in on the Doritos fallout on social media.

Anheuser-Busch last year attracted controversy with its partnership with the transgender TikTok influencer Dylan Mulvaney, who rocketed to fame in 2022 by documenting her gender transition in a TikTok series she calls “Days of Girlhood.’ Mulvaney was also among a small group of young advocates who met in 2022 with President Joe Biden at the White House, where she talked about transgender issues.

Following Mulvaney’s video, conservatives, including celebrities like Kid Rock, began posting viral videos of themselves trashing Bud Light cans, pouring them down the sink and even shooting them. Sales of the brand plummeted. 

U.S. CEO Brendan Whitworth said at the time that the company “never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people.” Mulvaney later said the company did not support her through the backlash.

Far-right accounts on X, including Libs of TikTok and End Wokeness, expressed disgust at Hudson’s Doritos video. Some referred to the Bud Light boycott. 

“Time to Bud Light Doritos,” Libs of TikTok wrote in a post re-sharing the video. “Unreal.”

A headline on The Daily Caller, a conservative news outlet, said: “Doritos Terrifying New Brand Ambassador Makes Dylan Mulvaney Look Like Sydney Sweeney.”