A bakery has been praised for its response to a celebrity's request which seemingly offered social media exposure in return for free goods.
On July 27, Three Little Birds Bakery took to Facebook to expose a well-known British celebrity as well as their PR management after the company was sent a lengthy email about an upcoming celebration.
Posting screenshots of the message alongside the caption "This poor celebrity apparently can't afford to pay people for their products and services. Spare a thought! What happened to women supporting women[?]," the owner urged others to treat small businesses fairly.
"We are organising a 40th Birthday Party for a well-known celebrity on the 1st of September 2023 in Manchester," the email read. "In return for being a supplier for the event, payment would be made in the form of promotion on their socials with over 700K followers, as well as promoted on OK Magazine. They will be crediting all the suppliers on these platforms."
"The party has a guest list full of celebrities and industry people from tv/film and music, so loads of work would come from it," the email continued before outlining a request for two cakes and 100 cupcakes to match the theme "camp as t*ts" for the occasion, as well as a small cake for the celeb's husband whose birthday falls on that day.
The bakery responded to the email, clearly not impressed with the PR company's lack of understanding of how business works.
"I’m so sorry to hear that your client has fallen out on such hard times they can’t afford to pay small businesses for their products," it wrote in response. "Unfortunately, as my mortgage provider doesn’t take payment 'in the form of promotion on their socials', and my staff can’t feed their kids with exposure on Instagram, I’ll have to decline your very generous offer."
The post has received over 6.7 thousand likes as well and hundreds of responses from Facebook users who praised their response.
Just a few days later, however, Three Little Birds Bakery was forced to publish another post after they were threatened with legal action.
"I’ve now been threatened with legal action by [the PR company] as a response to this post which they say is encouraging defamation of their business," the post read before outlining some further details about the company and its relation to the incident.
After seeing the fallout, the unnamed celebrity - who has now been identified as actress Catherine Tyldesley, best known for her role on the British soap Coronation Street - took to her own Instagram Stories to address all the drama.
The actress said she had "no idea" the emails were sent and even referred to the fiasco as "bizarre," as per the BBC.
In an Instagram clip posted on Wednesday, the mother-of-two said that the PR firm was an "amazing company" and had been "completely misrepresented in this matter."
"Don't really know what to say. I mean I hope the cake lady got the exposure she was craving," she added.
A statement by the company's founder also read: "[Redacted company name] contacted Three Little Birds Bakery to offer them the opportunity to collaborate with one of our clients to cater for a party.
"As part of the collaboration, our client would cover all of Three Little Birds Bakery's expenses and costs in exchange for social media content and local and national exposure for their business," they added.
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