Doritos Fires Transgender Influencer After Discovering Alleged Disturbing Comments About Children

The triangular side of Luxor Hotel and Casino is covered in an advertisement for Doritos in Las Vegas on Jan. 30, 2024. Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Doritos, a PepsiCo-owned brand of tortilla chips, has terminated its relationship with a transgender activist just days after the company’s Spanish division partnered with him, following the emergence of offensive and disturbing comments he is alleged to have posted online.

Doritos Spain partnered with 24-year-old transgender influencer and singer Samantha Hudson—who was reportedly born a male named Iván González Ranedo—for a 50-second branded video on Instagram earlier this week.

The video, which has since been deleted, was for a Doritos Spain campaign called “Crunch Talks,” according to multiple reports.

However, disturbing comments made by the influencer online in 2015 quickly emerged after the video was posted, including posts in which he mocked alleged victims of sexual abuse and suggested he wanted to do “depraved” things to a minor, multiple reports state.

The influencer appeared to mock sexual abuse survivors in another post.

Doritos Condemns Disturbing Comments

A Doritos spokesperson told Rolling Stone that its Spanish division had published the video featuring the influencer on Instagram before the exposure of the inflammatory comments online.

The company removed the post shortly after, and the influencer was terminated, the company said.

Separately, a spokesperson for Doritos Spain told Rolling Stone that the brand was “made aware of Samantha’s deleted Tweets from around 2015” after the video was published.

“We have ended the relationship and stopped all related campaign activity due to the comments,” the spokesperson said. “We strongly condemn words or actions that promote violence or sexism of any kind.”

PepsiCo officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for further comment.

Conservatives and consumers alike were quick to raise concerns over the initial partnership, with many drawing comparisons to beer brand Bud Light’s decision to partner with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney, a male who identifies as female, for a campaign last year.

‘Abolishing the Traditional Family’

The move sparked a widespread boycott and has seen Bud Light sales steadily decline, according to industry data.

“This is disgusting,” former Trump 2020 campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis wrote on the social media platform X after the Spanish singer’s comments and video with Doritos Spain emerged. “Give Doritos the Bud Light treatment.”

The X account “End Wokeness” said the influencer “identifies as a non-binary trans girl” and had advocated “annihilating, completely destroying, and abolishing the traditional family,” appearing to reference previous comments allegedly made during an interview on Spanish TV.

According to Rolling Stone, the transgender influencer has since apologized for the past comments online.

“Some tweets that I posted in 2015 are resurfacing and honestly I don’t know what to say, I don’t remember having written such barbarities,” he wrote, according to a Rolling Stone translation of the posts. “At that time I dedicated myself to saying nonsense, the heavier the better, because I thought that ‘dark humor’ was funny.”

According to multiple reports, Mr. Ranedo initially shot to fame on YouTube, where he shared videos on fashion and beauty, but later gained widespread recognition after one of his songs went viral on the platform. He has since won multiple music awards, including Best Spanish Artist at the 2023 MTV Europe Music Awards.