Is it ok to work with “cancelled” talent?

In this video, Christine shares what brands should consider when working with talent for their long form media projects who have been “cancelled” or who they worry might do something in the future that won’t align with their brand values. While many brands are scared to touch this area, there can be some benefits to considering it.

See full transcript of the video below.

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Transcript:

Hey, welcome to today’s video. I have an interesting topic for you today and this is relating to brands and teams on brands that want to work with long form media like podcasting and YouTube. But I’m going to talk about working with creators like talent, show hosts, influencers, etc. and your fear that will innately be with you about what do we do if they’re canceled or can we work with someone who’s been canceled or who’s had bad press. And this is a fear for every brand and something I’m constantly navigating with brands and talent and you know in the production world. Because the truth is, brands can get the furthest mileage for their message partnering with real people, right? Real people with real skills, talent, influencers, content creators, whatever we want to call them. And the inherent risk in doing that is that that person, that creator might very well do something down the line or has done something in the past that would be considered faux pas, likely to get them canceled, not go over well, damage their reputation. And of course, every brand from Disney to Apple to everyone wants to only work with creators who are brand safe, who are never going to offend anyone, who will always, you know, get it right on the nose with public affairs, but that’s just not reality. And I have a couple examples to give you just to start to help you think as a brand about maybe how to approach working with talent, individuals, humans, personal brands, knowing that there’s a very real chance that they might get canceled in the future. They might say something or do something that you don’t love. Or maybe there’s someone you’ve really wanted to partner with who’s like a really awesome person in your space who’s just really got all the notes you want to hit, but they’ve already kind of been canceled or done something that was considered really taboo or maybe exposed for something unsavory. And you’re trying to navigate like, what would it look like for us to partner with them? So I obviously don’t have the answer for everything. This is just some food for thought and it’s super important you make a good decision for your brand and your guidelines and your values. But I wanna give you two examples to kind of maybe open your mind to how you can think about this. One is Monica Lewinsky and one is Ellen DeGeneres. And I’m sure you have opinions as soon as I say those names, right? In 2025, both of those women are extremely well-known household names in the U.S. at minimum, if not the world, for being extremely well-known for good and bad, right? For good things and bad things. Monica Lewinsky for decades was very closely associated with Bill Clinton and the scandal during his presidency around an affair. That was before social media, so she really had a very unique experience of being cancelled prior to social media. And now today, I don’t know if you followed her, but she now has a podcast. She’s done a TED Talk about what it meant to be cancelled. And she’s having and leaning into the conversation of being a very public figure, only known for one thing, and how do you move on in your life after that. So she’s a really interesting example. If you listen to her TED talk, it’s very sobering talking about her experience back in the 90s when this went down and how she’s evolved. And she’s a fascinating figure to listen to because she experienced something almost nobody else on the planet experienced at that moment in time when email was new, the social media wasn’t a thing, and she was being covered in this, you know, really terrible light at a time when women were, you know, messaged about in a certain way versus men. So, she’s a really cool example to think about. Like, the second you hear that name, you are intrigued. You have a reference point. You’re curious about what she might be saying, especially if she was partnered with a brand. That would seem like a really interesting juxtaposition, right? But you would really want to listen to what she’s saying because you know she has a lived experience almost unlike anyone else on the planet. could be a very interesting talent partnership if the right fit was there for your brand and your audience. Another example is Ellen DeGeneres. She, I think just last year, came out with her last comedy special ever. She did a tour, she did a stand-up comedy routine on stage and filmed it and it’s on Netflix and I just watched it like last month. And it was really an interesting moment for me because if you remember Ellen DeGeneres, she’s had a very long career in the comedy world. She was on TV. You know, she came out as a lesbian on TV, which was a really big moment at the time she did it. Kind of got canceled for that and dropped. And then she came back as a beloved TV show host for over a decade as this, like, Everyone loved Ellen and then she got canceled again for being what was, you know, promoted in the media as mean, terrible boss, like had created a really toxic work environment on her set. Some really rough things went down. And so she ended her career on her TV show, like really at a low, kind of like her whole legacy had been smashed and she kind of went. into retirement. How do you do that, right? How do you go from being this beloved TV talk show host that everybody knows and associates with being happy and positive to then kind of this expose and then go back to the stage as a comedian? And it was really powerful and interesting because she does talk about it in the special. And she is a brilliant comedian to this day. She still is incredibly good at that craft. And she’s talking about that entire experience. you know, what do I choose to do now? And I was just thinking over the last couple months about both of those women, super unique talent that have gone through very interesting things that anyone who’s heard their names would be fascinated probably to know their thoughts and takes on certain parts of culture and the experience of being canceled or exposed or kind of, you know, falling out of favor. And I just want to use those as reference points that sometimes, depending on the situation, obviously lots of context here, talent that fits really well with your target audience, with your industry, with your topic, if you’ve been nervous about reaching out to them or concepting a brand collaboration through long-form media with them as a show host or them as a brand ambassador or them doing a piece of content with you, there’s something really interesting there to consider. And I’m not talking about people who have done things that are truly so offensive that like real, you know, very deep harm has come to like a large group of people. And you have to make that call, right? You have to do your own research. I’m not co-signing on Ellen or Monica in this moment. I’m using them as examples. I certainly haven’t done enough research myself to, like, have a fully formed opinion about what I, you know, whether I think what they did was right or wrong, etc. But I think there’s something really interesting here around Knowing that cancel culture is very powerful in our current media landscape and has been for several years, knowing that sometimes like the hot fire or the trending moment or there’s always a target on someone who’s very successful on their back, that can create a really interesting conversation. And sometimes time needs to pass, right? Sometimes there does need to be apologies or reparations or an acknowledgement of wrong. Every single circumstance is different and sometimes people do things that are really horrific and they’re not at all apologetic and I would not recommend you work with those folks on a brand deal. That is not my recommendation. But sometimes I think it’s the most interesting intersection when you see a well-known figure, someone who has incredible talent in the media space who has been kind of thrown in the mud or exposed or a big mistake has been revealed or they were just caught in some really nasty crossfire and time passes and there is a wisdom there and a really interesting opportunity there for a brand to explore a conversation or maybe for that person to be the moderator or the facilitator of some really interesting conversations. because they have both a skill and a lived experience that is very unique and is quite compelling. And your target audience may very well only listen to that message through their perspective. Okay, I know this is a different kind of video today, but I had this jotted in my notes for a while to do a video on this because I think it’s so compelling and I think it is a space that a lot of brands are really scared to walk into for obvious reasons. And like I said, there are so many nuances and context to give every single situation and every single person that you may be considering partnering with. You really do have to take responsibility for your own research, your own fact checking, your own understanding of the situation. But I want you to just get curious. If you’ve been brainstorming about working with talent or doing a collaboration with a content creator or having someone host maybe a long-form series in connection with your brand and the person you really would love, you’re a little nervous, maybe based on their past or maybe what might happen in the future. maybe think a little bit more in the context of like, what does it mean to be human? And what does our brand have to say about that? And what are we willing to align with and what are we not? And maybe something really interesting could come from that. Okay, that’s the video for today. Leave a comment if you want to go deeper on this and I’ll see you next time.