The president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) has criticized luxury stationary bike company Peloton for pulling ads on its podcast during the host’s interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
UFC President Dana White criticized Peloton on comedian Theo Vaughn’s show after the comedian said the exercise bike company pulled ads during his interview with Kennedy.
A Peloton spokesperson disputed the claim that it asked Von to remove the episodes, telling Fox News Digital that the company pulled its ads due to the comedian’s content that conflicted with the company’s “brand safety guidelines.”
White hit out at Peloton with an expletive-laden tongue lashing after Vaughn told him the high-end exercise equipment company had pulled ads.
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UFC President Dana White criticized Peloton on comedian Theo Vaughn’s show after the comedian said the exercise bike company pulled out of an advertising deal over his interview with Kennedy. (Chris Unger/Zova LLC via Getty Images)
“Peloton, what do they sell, f—ing… stationary bikes?” White said. “Peloton sells stationary bikes, and they have a problem with Robert F. Kennedy.”
“F— you’re Peloton! Who are— are you kidding me?” The UFC president continued. “Fuck Peloton, the connection, about Robert Kennedy.”
White and Vaughn ripped into Peloton and company CEO Barry McCarthy on the podcast episode. White said he will remove the Peloton bikes from his gym.
“We’re getting rid of the Peloton,” White said. “The Peloton outside the gym.”
Vaughn said that Peloton “was about to go public or something” and that his ad agency said: “There’s concern that this might ruin everything.”
“It’s 8 p.m. on a Friday or something, and they made us delete an old episode because of something he said recently on the news,” Vaughn said.
“This was like…two years ago,” Vaughn added.
White and Vaughn criticized Peloton and the company’s CEO, Barry McCarthy, on the podcast episode and said they would remove Peloton’s gym bikes. (Steven J. Cohen/Getty Images)
A Peloton spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the company asked to pull its ad from a December 2021 episode featuring an interview with Kennedy, due to the company’s “brand safety guidelines” that restrict proximity to political content. The company “continued to advertise with him,” the spokesperson said.
According to a spokesperson, Peloton’s “Brand Safety Guidelines” prohibit the company from advertising in close proximity to “drug and alcohol use, vulgar language, inappropriate objects, crude humor, sexual themes, political issues, racial issues,” and other similar issues .
Fox News Digital asked the spokesperson about Peloton’s endorsement of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. The spokesperson pointed to the company’s “values” and said that “stock has always been a core value of the company.”
“But, again, let’s take the question in relation to the announcement,” the spokesman said. “There couldn’t have been proactive ad buys related to this issue either way, right, because that was political.”
“So we’re talking about the difference in the statement in terms of the company’s belief, the company’s values, and marketing ad spend,” the spokesperson continued.
Additionally, the spokesperson said Peloton pulled its advertising with Von after a sponsored episode in March 2022 that touched on pornography and sexual situations.
Von’s content is known to intersect with sexual and other mature themes. Fox News Digital asked a spokesperson if Peloton had asked to pull ads from similar episodes, but the spokesperson was “unsure” whether that had happened.
A Peloton spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the company respects Vaughn’s work and did not ask him to pull the episode. The spokesperson said the company pulled its ads because the comedian’s content conflicted with the company’s “brand safety guidelines,” which they “proactively share” with those who advertise. (Bloomberg/Getty Images)
The spokesperson noted that iPhone content may have changed over the years.
“I think you’ll need to study the trajectory of his podcast to see how it’s evolved,” the spokesperson said. “I’m not sure what a ‘typical’ episode would include today versus 2021.”
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The spokesperson also said the company is doing its “best, but it’s impossible to see/hear every episode, everywhere” it advertises. “Like any brand, we’re doing our best to stay on top of everything so we can be as consistent as humanly possible in real time with our brand safety guidelines,” the spokesperson said.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Von Podcast for comment.
