Fans Threaten Victoria's Secret Boycott Over Romee Strijd Snub
By @sharedot · · 6 pages
- Style
- Fashion
- Victorias Secret
- Romee Strijd
Fans call for a boycott of the Victoria's Secret show after Romee Strijd said she was rejected and kept in the dark for weeks.
Strijd Rejected Days Before the Los Angeles Show
Romee Strijd will not walk in Sunday's Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Los Angeles, a decision the Dutch model shared in emotional TikTok videos.
According to socialnieuws.nl, she auditioned in New York in the first week of September, trained all summer as a mother of two, and then heard nothing from her agency IMG for five to six weeks — until a call days before the show told her she did not fit this year.
In her video she says she was told she had 'actually been rejected earlier,' which contradicted what she had been told for weeks. Strijd says she will not join future castings for the brand.
Why the Snub Stung So Badly
The surprise is not the rejection itself but the history behind it. Strijd first walked the show in 2015 and appeared on its runway six more times, and per Ditjes en Datjes, fans note she was recently selected for a Victoria's Secret campaign — making the casting call hard for them to reconcile.
Her two TikTok videos, which socialnieuws.nl describes as tearful, turned a routine casting outcome into a public relations problem days before a headline show featuring Adriana Lima, Gigi Hadid and performers Megan Thee Stallion and Tate McRae.
'We Don't Want Influencers'
The backlash centers on what fans say the brand should be. Ditjes en Datjes reports comments like 'We don't want influencers we want the OG angels!!!' and complaints that Victoria's Secret now favors influencers over experienced supermodels.
One fan wrote that Strijd 'was literally selected to be the face of the brand, and this is how she's now treated???' Others posted 'Boycotting VS this year without you' and '@victoriassecret will not be watching,' with another calling the decision a 'BIG mistake.
HUGE.' These are fan interpretations of the casting, not established verdicts on the selected models.
What Comes Next
Whether the boycott calls dent viewership cannot be determined from the comments, as Ditjes en Datjes notes.
Strijd, meanwhile, says the communication hurt more than the rejection: 'They left me in the dark for so long, without me knowing, which gave me enormous mental stress,' she shared, per socialnieuws.nl.
She wants to keep the positive memories of the years the answer was yes — and the online debate over the brand's identity, influencers and loyalty to former Angels is now part of the show's run-up.