Addison Rae & adidas Battle Bikini Backlash of biblical proportions

Who knew Addison Rae, the eternal sunshine that she is, would ever go against conservative Christian morals? However, the impossible happened when Rae, adidas and Praying became the center of a biblical firestorm.

Let’s start at the top.

TikTok celebrity Addison Rae and Praying uploaded pictures to their Instagram pages on August 3 to promote Praying’s upcoming collaboration with adidas. In the pictures, Rae wore Praying’s signature ‘Holy Trinity’ bikini, which is exactly what you think it is: ‘Father’, ‘Son’ and ‘Holy Spirit’ are printed on the top and bottom of the bikini.

It started out as a bit of a promotion for Praying’s adidas Supernova Cushion 7 sneaker collab, but grew into so much more.

Almost immediately, Christian commentators began pantomiming the exaggerated outrage typical of majority groups and evoked by a piece of clothing—cough, Satan’s shoe, cough—and began angry diatribes in the comments section.

Rae and Praying deleted the adidas ads from their respective Instagram pages, but instead of turning the other cheek, people let the bile spit on other posts.

Especially on Praying’s Instagram page, where the indie brand promotes its tongue-in-cheek t-shirts and baby doll dresses, people came out en masse to moan, “This is so wrong,” “This is definitely blasphemy,” and on another Post spotlighting the Holy Trinity Bikini, “This is WAY out of line and extremely disrespectful!”

The vitriol has spilled over to adidas’ own Instagram page, where comments have ranged from “never wear you again” and “no wonder Kanye wanted to leave adidas” – there are probably other reasons, but yeah sure – to the inarticulate Screeching in capital letters will do.

“SO YALL ON YALL DOWNFALL NOW ANYONE COMES WITH AN IDEA MUST BE FIRED ASAP BECAUSE THEY DEFINITELY JUST BANKRUPTED THE COMPANY,” someone said, apparently assuming Addison Raes Praying x adidas advertising would single-handedly fuel a multi-billion dollar business.

Highsnobiety has reached out to adidas for comment.

Rae, meanwhile, has escaped much of the bloated aggression on Instagram, but her TikTok page has been full of nagging.

There, people offered up revealing tidbits like “Jesus is king,” “Just sad bro,” and “we were all root for you, how dare you dare,” as if Rae had announced her new role as satanic high priestess rather than simply wearing it a bikini.

The weight of the backlash seems to be really hitting Rae, who was snapped by paparazzi on her way from daily Pilates.

Rae, usually beaming, wore a pulled-down dark hat and muted clothing that reflected a more boisterous mood.

The funny thing is that all this outrage plays into Praying’s game. With drama, especially moral panic, comes more attention and with it more money. Hey, it worked for Travis Scott.

For example, I’m not sure if the Holy Trinity Bikini was already on the front page of Praying’s website or if he moved the set there in an enterprising move to capitalize on the drama, but it’s a good one either way Timing.

Prayer got the trolls pumping on August 4 with a cheeky post that included a Bible quote of its own. Instagram stories were also posted by people wearing the Holy Trinity bikini throughout the day.

The comments section was as bad as you would expect, although some people retained a sense of humor.

While Praying may be up to the task of facing the excitement head-on, controversy is rare for sunny Addison Rae, whose entire brand is built on her god-given charm. When faced with previous firestorms, she weathered them head-on and came out the other end mostly unscathed.

“One thing about me that surprises people is that I’m just as happy as I am in the pictures,” she recently told Highsnobiety.

“I try to always be positive and people think that’s not real. No matter what situation I’ve found myself in my entire life, good or bad, I’ve always been [known] that things will pass and get better.”

I would say that applies here as well.

Just like any moral affront that takes over social media, this one will pass and Rae, adidas and Praying will eventually be good. These general harassment campaigns always run out of breath when advocates find something else to bitch about.

Really, what surprises me the most is the sheer volume of complaints that have flooded the internet. Not to get into a theological debate or anything, of course, but it’s weird.

Like the people who pretend to be personally persecuted for their Christian identity (Rae hasn’t spoken much publicly about the religion, but various celebrity statistical websites report that Rae’s family is Christian).

According to a 2020 poll, about 63% of Americans identify as Christian, which is quite a large number of people. Indeed, it is not unfair to say that Christianity in general is the dominant religion in America and still influences much of its legislation.

However, there are still people who complain that it was unfair for Rae to “target” Christians, as if it were some kind of specific attack on their religious beliefs.

The commercialization of Christian imagery isn’t inherently blasphemous, so it can’t be that they’re mad at seeing the Holy Trinity bikini for themselves, right? Or at least they shouldn’t be mad at a printed swimsuit, or they should be equally annoyed at Kanye’s merch and Justin Bieber’s “Holy” tee.

Instead, it’s probably the context of Praying’s Holy Trinity Bikini that triggered people. Is it so bad that a few words are printed on the body parts of a woman that society sexualizes and shames in equal measure?

But how many people really get upset about people wearing tongue-in-cheek “Jesus Loves Me” shirts?

This in particular feels less like a case of true sacrilege and more like social media obsessed individuals taking the opportunity to feign hurt for a taste of delicious, righteous outrage.

Maybe people should be wondering, WWJD? Would the big man be really cool if a bunch of randos stalked a 21-year-old through hateful Instagram and Tiktok comments?