Burger King burnt over offensive tweet on International Women’s Day

Fast-food chain Burger King found itself on the griddle and getting burnt over an offensive tongue-in-cheek tweet on International Women’s Day that backfired massively on the burger brand.

“Women belong in the kitchen,” the now-deleted tweet by Burger King UK read on Monday.

While the thread was meant to reference the male-dominated UK kitchens and attempt to help women break through by awarding culinary scholarships, the chain deleted the tweet and issued an apology instead.

“We hear you. We got our initial tweet wrong and we’re sorry. Our aim was to draw attention to the fact that only 20% of professional chefs in UK kitchens are women and to help change that by awarding culinary scholarships,” the apology read. “We will do better next time.”

We decided to delete the original tweet after our apology. It was brought to our attention that there were abusive comments in the thread and we don't want to leave the space open for that.

— Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) March 8, 2021

There was a large backlash on social media as the original tweet had to be deleted due to “abusive comments in the thread and we don’t want to leave the space open for that.”