Naomi Osaka.Photo: Juergen Hasenkopf/BPI/REX/Shutterstock
The maker of Cup Noodle and Top Ramen, Japan’s Nissin Foods, has pulled ads featuring biracial tennis player Naomi Osaka after critics said they “whitewashed” her natural skin tone.
On Wednesday, the company pulled the campaign, released earlier this month, from YouTube due to the backlash,theJapan Timesreported.
“The characters were designed with the intention to replicate the world of the anime series as much as possible,” the statement continued, saying that the company consulted Osaka’s reps in Japan before releasing the ads. The drawings, however, were not shared with her U.S. reps before they went public.
“The current situation creating social controversy is not what we had intended, and therefore have decided to stop the campaign,” the company concluded in the statement.
When asked about the ads on Thursday, the Grand Slam winner said she’s been in contact with Nissin,according to Associated Press.
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“I’ve talked to them. They’ve apologized … I’m tan. It’s pretty obvious,” she said, according toSports Illustrated, adding that she doesn’t believe the ad meant to “whitewash” her.
“But I definitely think that the next time they try to portray me or something, I feel like they should talk to me about it,” she told reporters in Melbourne, where she’s currently competing in the Australian Open.
During Thursday’s semifinals, Osaka beat Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 4-6, 6-4,Sports Illustratedreported.
Reps for Osaka did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Osaka told PEOPLE at the timethat she wasn’t nervous playing Williams, 37, “because I played her once before. The reason why I would be nervous was because I’ve never played a finals before. Otherwise, when I stepped onto the court I felt completely fine. When I play, I feel like a different person so I felt pretty comfortable.”
She then addressed the controversy, saying she “didn’t really know what [it] was about.”
source: people.com
