Where’s the beef? In space, girl!
Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Met Museum
It’s almost the end of the week, and we’re still dealing with fallout from the girlboss Blue Origin rocket trip with new little dramas coming out of it like so much space debris. After Gayle King responded to critics of the expensive stunt with a new spin on “Let them eat cake” for the space age, Wendy’s (the burger restaurant) is now picking a fight with King’s fellow “astronaut” Katy Perry (the “Bon Appétit” singer).
What does a fast-food chain have to do with an 11-minute all-female mission to space? Well. On April 14, Pop Crave dutifully tweeted the news “Katy Perry has returned from space,” and Wendy waded her nosy ass into the replies, posting from the corporate social-media account, “Can we send her back.” This out-of-pocket response was treated the way brand tweets should be, which is to say for the most part politely ignored, until April 17, when “a source close to the situation” brought the story to People, telling the magazine that “this wasn’t harmless banter, this was a billion-dollar brand using its platform to publicly demean a woman.”
Wendy’s issues new statement to PEOPLE after asking for Katy Perry to be sent back to space:
“We always bring a little spice to our socials, but Wendy’s has a ton of respect for Katy Perry and her out-of-this-world-talent.” pic.twitter.com/6ReFwpxL1Z
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) April 17, 2025
This “source close to the situation” could have bit their tongue and held their breath, scared to rock the boat and make a mess, but nevertheless they persisted and noted that “this kind of behavior contributes to a culture where women are punished for standing out or a woman daring to do something different is a target.” Already brushing off the dust, they continued: “Telling a woman that she should be ‘sent back’ is shameful bullying and reflects a troubling willingness to tear down in today’s society … What’s worse is that the face of Wendy’s is a woman, which makes this decision not just hypocritical but painfully ironic.”
Ma’am, this is, quite literally, a Wendy’s. It doesn’t have to be culture-war fodder about two beautiful queens representing separate multibillion-dollar corporate interests tearing each other down! It can just be a silly tweet. I’m just saying that if I had the opportunity to literally go to outer space wearing extensions and a full beat and use it as an opportunity to release the set list for my upcoming world tour, I wouldn’t have a “source close to the situation” paint me as a marginalized victim of online-burger crime. Still, the chain issued a sort-of apology to People, saying, “We always bring a little spice to our socials, but Wendy’s has a ton of respect for Katy Perry and her out-of-this-world talent.”
Why does Wendy’s have such high-sodium (a.k.a. salty) takes on Perry? The most likely answer is that the account is run by a member of a competing stan community, but my theory is that the Blue Origin mission got in the way of Wendy’s own major technological launch on Monday, April 14: Frostys with flavor swirls in them.
Perry has yet to give a statement of her own, but clearly there is only one way this beef will ever get squared away: Reboot the Cold War space race but this time with girls, like 2016’s Ghostbusters. Blue Origin critics like Olivia Munn and Wendy from Wendy’s must go to space! It’s the only way.
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