If you’d told us that the first great Hollywood story of 2019 would be about a bottled water spokesmodel doing The Office reaction faces in the background of award show red carpet photos, becoming a meme, and then suing the bottled water company that gave her her nickname for capitalising on it, we would have said, “OK, yup, that sounds about right.”
The latest in this refreshingly petty saga is as follows: Fiji Water Girl, known professionally as Kelleth Cuthbert and legally as Kelly Steinbach, is now being countersued by Fiji Water.
According to Page Six, they say her initial suit’s claims of being pressured into signing fake documents and of her likeness being used without her permission are false, and that she’s actually in breach of contract herself.
And while these kinds of legal documents are usually pretty dry, the countersuit is actually as juicy and shady as a tropical rainforest.
Fiji Water’s legal team claims in the filing that Cuthbert/Steinbach has “bitten the hand that feeds her”, AKA “the very company that is entirely responsible for providing her the opportunity and the means to capitalize on her fleeting 15 minutes of internet fame”.
Look, becoming internet famous overnight must be super weird. And Fiji Water seemed a bit slow on the uptake on Globes night, with the meme going off on Twitter for a good couple of hours before their social media team actually twigged and joined in.
It took your social media team or agency three hours to craft this tweet? Imagine what you could have done in real time pre-show, throughout the show, and post show if your brand was prepared. Real time content. And you were a sponsor. #fail #socialmedia #brandmarketing #social
— David Beebe (@davidbeebe) January 7, 2019
Imagine being the @FIJIWater social media person and coming back to your phone after a quiet Sunday evening ?? #FijiWaterGirl #GoldenGlobeAwards2019 pic.twitter.com/xCczn13o01
— Shelby L. (@ShelBB8) January 7, 2019
Either way, this moist and messy meme war is clearly never going to stop being entertaining. Who needs water when there’s so much tea?
