(Photo Source: etonline.com)

The VS Fashion Show cancelled after low viewership and public backlash

Victoria’s Secret has canceled its 2019 fashion show after years of backlash from the public. The lingerie show, which aired every year in December, was accused of everything from promoting unrealistic body images to being too revealing and inappropriate for television.

According to Fast Company, 6.7 million people tuned into the fashion show in 2016. But by 2017 (the year the #MeToo movement launched) the audience had dwindled to 5 million. By 2018, only 3.3 million people were tuning in to the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show.

Elizabeth Segran, a reporter for Fast Company, speculates that Lex Wexner’s ties to billionaire sex predator Jeffrey Epstein played a role in the backlash. Wexner is the owner of the L Company, which owns Victoria’s Secret.

“As countless media reports exposed men like Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, and Jeffrey Epstein who sexually harassed or raped women, it was impossible not to wonder about what kind of culture facilitated this kind of abuse. And the Victoria’s Secret fashion show was part of the problem, premised on the idea that models are objects of sexual gratification,” Segran wrote. “It was easy to see the parallels between the show and the behavior of predatory men who treated women as objects of sexual pleasure. In more granular terms, Victoria’s Secret facilitated the actual abuse of models. Epstein was a close adviser to Leslie Wexner, the CEO of L Brands, which owns Victoria’s Secret, and reportedly lured would-be models into compromising situations by saying he could get them into the show.”