Frank Ocean And Chipotle Go To War Over Advertisement, Money

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Remember that incredibly beautiful Chipotle commercial with the Fiona Apple “Pure Imagination” cover that ran last year? Part celebration of farming and green spaces and part hype for an app/ game called The Scarecrow, the three minute clip quickly went viral and was loved by pretty much everyone. Well, apparently, Apple was actually the company’s second choice. Its executives originally hired Frank Ocean and paid him an advance of $212,500, or half of the total they were planning to pay. Long story short, his version never happened, and now, the acclaimed singer and the delicious fast food-ish restaurant are at war.

Last week, Chipotle’s lawyers fired off a lawsuit in an attempt to reclaim the lost $212,500 payment they claim was never returned. Ocean’s lawyers quickly fired back with a story about how their client was promised final approval of the cut and that Chipotle wasn’t planning to actually advertise itself. Why in the name of sustainable farming they would pay that much money to not advertise themselves is beyond me, but apparently, the failure to communicate happened and now Ocean wants to put it all behind him.

Today, he took to his Tumblr account and posted a picture of a Cashier’s Check in the amount of $212,500. In case his feelings weren’t clear enough, the memo field reads “Fuck Off”. A representative for Chipotle told TMZ a few hours ago that they haven’t received the check yet, but there’s no reason to think it won’t arrive sooner rather than later.

At the end of the day, none of us were inside the initial negotiations. It seems ridiculous to think Ocean would really object to Chipotle flashing its logo for a few seconds at the end of a beautiful three minute commercial that hypes sustainable farming and eco-responsibility, but there could very well be a lot more to this issue than we know about. After all, Ocean sent out a link to the Wikipedia page for defamation not long before he screenshotted the check.

You can check out the video for “The Scarecrow” below…

Mack Rawden
Editor In Chief

Mack Rawden is the Editor-In-Chief of CinemaBlend. He first started working at the publication as a writer back in 2007 and has held various jobs at the site in the time since including Managing Editor, Pop Culture Editor and Staff Writer. He now splits his time between working on CinemaBlend’s user experience, helping to plan the site’s editorial direction and writing passionate articles about niche entertainment topics he’s into. He graduated from Indiana University with a degree in English (go Hoosiers!) and has been interviewed and quoted in a variety of publications including Digiday. Enthusiastic about Clue, case-of-the-week mysteries, a great wrestling promo and cookies at Disney World. Less enthusiastic about the pricing structure of cable, loud noises and Tuesdays.