Peloton Drops Chris Noth’s Ad, And Zoe Lister-Jones Calls Him A “Sexual Predator”
It was truly a whirlwind ride last week for the marketing team at Peloton, the ubiquitous internet-connected stationary exercise bike company. Their stock fell after that moment featuring Chris Noth’s Mr. Big on HBO’s And Just Like That…, which they recovered from with the help of a buzzy holiday ad starring none other than Chris Noth. Now they’re back on the bad side of publicity. After The Hollywood Reporter published stories from two women who claim they were raped several years ago by Chris Not, they pulled the ad. And it gets worse for Chris Noth. Actress Zoe Lister-Jones read what The Hollywood Reporter published, and she lent credibility to the allegations by coming forward with her own comments on the situation.
Two years ago, Peloton caught shit when they released a holiday ad featuring a skinny woman being gifted a Peloton from her husband, which didn’t go over too well with people who are averse to cringe. They probably thought they had it in the bag with this year’s ad, featuring a **SPOILER** very much alive Mr. Big and his Peloton instructor crush “Allegra” (played by real Peloton instructor Jess King), with the tagline “And just like that…he’s alive.” Wow, what a fun, clever tie-in to the HBO show. Until it wasn’t. via CBS News:
Peloton is no longer promoting an ad with “Sex and the City” star Chris Noth after an article was published Thursday accusing the actor of sexual assault. On Thursday, The Hollywood Reporter published a story accusing Noth of sexual assault against two unnamed women in two separate incidents, 11 years apart. As of Thursday afternoon, Peloton’s tweet with the Noth ad was deleted. Ryan Reynolds, whose production company produced the spot, also removed his tweet promoting the spot.
A rep for Peloton released the following statement regarding the spot:
Every single sexual assault accusation must be taken seriously. We were unaware of these allegations when we featured Chris Noth in our response to HBO’s reboot. As we seek to learn more, we have stopped promoting this video and archived related social posts.
The spot is gone gone. You can’t find it on Twitter, it’s no longer on YouTube. It existed online for 4 days, which isn’t even as long as we’ve been talking about Mr. Big’s dismissal from the show! Peloton has such lousy luck with their holiday ads, their next one should be the definition of safe. Just Santa Claus standing next to one, explaining in a monotone voice, “This is exercise equipment. You may or may not feel compelled to buy this. Ho ho ho.”
Peloton clearly pulled the ad because of the mountain of bad vibes associated with Chris Noth as of yesterday. They weren’t about to wait until things got worse with the confirmation of a police investigation into Chris Noth’s alleged behavior. But, if they had, they’d be waiting a while. Because Deadline reports that the LAPD has confirmed they’re not currently investigating Chris Noth. via Deadline:
Los Angeles police say they are not actively looking into sexual assault allegations against Chris Noth.
“There is no investigation at this point,” Officer Drake Madison told Deadline on Thursday evening about the claim by a woman that the Sex and the City star raped her in 2004.
Police sources tell Deadline that the woman in question, who is going by the pseudonym Zoe, did speak to police after her alleged assault occurred. But because she refused to file an official report, no investigation was launched. But, LAPD Sgt. Bruce Borihanh tells Deadline they’re still working to look through their system to see if any kind of report was filed. And even if one is found, it might be hard to enforce, as California has a 10-year statute of limitations on the type of crime being reported to The Hollywood Reporter. A lawyer representing Chris Noth released this statement:
“No one from any law enforcement agency has contacted Chris or any of his representatives. Obviously if anyone does reach out, we will cooperate fully.”
There are still the allegations made by Lily, also a pseudonym, which allegedly took place in New York in 2015. Then there’s Zoe Lister-Jones, aka City Councilwoman Fawn Moscato from New Girl (among other things). She took to Instagram to explain that she used to work at a club Chris Noth owned in New York City, and she’s too familiar with how he allegedly behaves around women. On top of that, she says that after landing a guest spot on Law & Order, she shared a scene with Chris Noth, who she says was drunk and stealthily drinking beer during their scene. Zoe claims that after one take, he approached her, smelled her neck, and whispered, “You smell good.”
Many have also pointed out that Beverly Johnson talked about Chris Noth as far back as 1995, when she alleged that Chris, her boyfriend from 1990 to 1995, had reportedly gotten violent and abusive with her many times during their relationship. And apparently, it’s not just famous women who might have some stories about Chris Noth:
every single NYU freshman in the last 20 years who dared to stroll down University Pl during Welcome Week is unsurprised by this Chris Noth news
— discourse wallah (@krutika) December 16, 2021
Chris Noth isn’t just Mr. Big, he also played a detective in Law & Order for five seasons. Not only is he definitely not Mr. Big in real life, but it’s looking like he’s maybe more of the type to be interrogated by Stabler and Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Pics: Wenn.com