If you haven’t been following this weird Twitter/X drama surrounding Johnny Bananas and Big Brother winner Taylor Hale, then buckle up because it’s a doozy. One might even venture to say that it’s bananas. Let’s start from the beginning.
This mess all started when Johnny started making posts on social media making comparisons between The Challenge and all of the CBS reality competition shows. In Johnny’s eyes, the show he has been competing in since the 2000s is the superior one.
Taylor chimed in and criticized Johnny for using the CBS fans to farm engagement on social media. In her post, she called him “the yellow fruit man.” He turned around and replied with six banana emojis, followed up with a gorilla emoji. From there, all hell broke loose, but Johnny doesn’t seem ready to take full accountability.
The “yellow fruit man” is pointing fingers
Within moments of Johnny posting that gorilla emoji, tons of players from The Challenge and beyond chimed in, condemning the post. It seemed racist, and there’s no denying that.
With the backlash rolling in, Johnny is allegedly taking this situation very seriously. He’s taking it so seriously that he went to Variety to make excuses for why the racially charged comment came from his profile.
He said it was actually a marketing agency called Step Up Social that hired them to promote his new crypto “meme coin.” Promoting a meme coin is cringey as it is, but Johnny claimed they were the ones who sent the gorilla emoji to Taylor.
“I went back and forth with this company for a few days, putting tweets together that I approved being posted from my social media accounts. What I did not approve was them to go rogue and start responding to others,” Johnny claimed.
According to Johnny, the gorilla emoji symbolizes “strength” in the “crypto world.” The marketing agency didn’t take into account the racial connotation that would come along with sending that to Big Brother’s first Black woman winner.
“I do not take this situation lightly at all. As soon as I was made aware of what happened, I reached out to Taylor because my main concern was making sure that she had as much clarity as she could have, Johnny said. “I wanted to make sure she knew the truth.”
Why Johnny is ready to lawyer up
In the aftermath of this mess, Step Up Social issued an apology to their roughly 300 followers. They also emailed it to Taylor since she isn’t one of those followers.
“We sincerely apologize for the unauthorized content of a recent tweet posted on behalf of Johnny Bananas by our agency designed to promote the $BANANAS cryptocurrency,” the agency wrote.
The marketing agency went on to say that they were “working closely” with Bananas to make the situation right and “restore trust.” Unfortunately, it might be a little too late. According to Taylor, the apology didn’t come quickly enough. She said she received “racist messages” from Johnny’s fans after calling him out.
“I do not hold Johnny responsible for the insensitive tweet, but I do hold him responsible for the response,” Taylor said in a statement.
Of course, it’s not like Johnny has a spotless reputation in reality TV. He’s a self-proclaimed villain. However, he told Variety that he was “strongly considering legal action” against Step Up Social because of the harm they just caused his brand (and probably the meme coin). He knows this isn’t the type of villainy anyone wants to support.
The Challenge and Big Brother are both streaming on Paramount+.
TELL US – WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON JOHNNY BLAMING HIS INSENSITIVE POST ON A MARKETING AGENCY? DO YOU THINK JOHNNY WILL MOVE FORWARD WITH LEGAL ACTION?
