The PR Risk of Celebrity Partnerships
Published on October 29, 2025, at 10:28 a.m.
by Julia Fowler
Brands love the instant reach of celebrity endorsements, but in today’s cancel-culture climate, one wrong move by a celebrity can turn a marketing win into a public relations crisis.
Celebrity partnerships have been a go-to strategy for brands to gain credibility, boost awareness and increase engagement. A familiar face gives the audience someone to relate to, or even aspire to be. Whether through athletes promoting sneakers or TV stars modeling denim, celebrities have the power to humanize brands, making them feel more personal.
When a celebrity becomes the face of a brand, their image becomes part of the brand’s story. This is something we have all seen go south before. Kanye with Adidas, Dylan Mulvaney with Bud Light, and Sydney Sweeney with American Eagle. People love to see their favorite celebrities representing well-known brands, but PR professionals don’t love the risky backlash that could follow.
Kanye West’s partnership with Adidas is a prime example of a PR risk gone-bad. Once a billion-dollar collaboration, it collapsed after a string of West’s controversial remarks on social media regarding the Jewish community could no longer be ignored. This left Adidas scrambling to cut ties with the partnership and manage the extreme inventory losses. Kanye has proven himself an unreliable and irrational celebrity time and time again, with behavior that can not be trusted with well-respected brands.
Bud Light’s partnership with influencer Dylan Mulvaney also shows how fragile borrowed fame can be. The campaign, intended to expand reach, ended up costing the company about 30% of its loyal customer base and sparking nationwide boycotts. Two years later, the damage remains. The campaign wasn’t just controversial; it was a strategic misstep that revealed a stunning lack of awareness about the brand’s core consumers. The once devoted beer drinkers left the product on the shelf and opted for other brands to satisfy their thirst.
This celebrity partnership risk is also seen in the “Sydney Sweeney Has Good Jeans” American Eagle ad. This summer, American Eagle partnered with Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney to promote their new denim line. The ad shows Sweeney, a young woman with blonde hair and blue eyes wearing the denim collection, showcasing that she has “good genes.” This pun strategy was quickly called out by viewers and the campaign was criticized “for the hypersexualized nature” of the ad and promoting eugenic ideals. Both American Eagle and Sweeney addressed the hate by standing true to their beliefs that the campaign “is and always was about the jeans”. The ad illustrated how quickly celebrity-driven campaigns can take on new meanings beyond a brand’s control, showing the uncertainty of building awareness on borrowed fame.
In the end, celebrity partnerships are a gamble between fame and fallout. While they can generate buzz and brand loyalty, they also tie a company’s image to a single person’s choices the brand can’t control. For PR professionals, the lesson is clear, credibility built on borrowed fame can be torn down incredibly fast. The smartest brands today are balancing influence with authenticity, choosing representatives who align with their values rather than just their follower count.
