In the past few years, Coachella has become the epicenter of influencer marketing, and weekend one is arguably more about the branding opportunities than the music. Influencers of all shapes and sizes—wait no, most of them are skinny af—descend on Indio, California for a thee-day explosion of sponsored content. This includes basically all the creatures of Bachelor Nation, who come for Coachella, and obviously stay for Stagecoach. But not everything that happens at Coachella stays at Coachella, and Bachelor alum Amanda Stanton is now facing a lawsuit over some of her Coachella #content.
The whole thing started when Amanda Stanton was given a Chanel bag by the store Moonstone Vintage in LA. The bag, a black leather backpack, was worth over $3,000, and in exchange for the gift, Amanda was expected to tag the store in her post. Tagging an account in a post is literally the easiest thing in the world, but Amanda still managed to mess it up. When she posted the photo below, she tagged several other brands for her outfit, but not for the bag. She’s now added the tag, but it’s too little, too late for Moonstone.
Aside from the agreed upon post, Amanda can also be seen wearing the Chanel backpack in at least two of her other Instagram posts from this spring, including one at STAGECOACH!!! Do we think the backpack met Blake? Did Blake hook up with the backpack? Were there DMs exchanged? Honestly, I’m surprised the backpack wasn’t on this season of Paradise.
But back to the matter at hand. Moonstone Vintage says that Amanda Stanton didn’t uphold her end of the deal, and now they’re suing her for the cost of the bag, as well as shipping and handling. The total amount of the lawsuit is just under $5,000, and while that’s not an earth-shattering amount, I think the suit in general is meant to send a message to these influencers. While actual sponsored content is pretty cut-and-dry, the guidelines around gifts and barters are kind of a gray area. It’s unclear if Moonstone Vintage had any kind of actual contract with Amanda Stanton, but even if they didn’t, tagging the brand would be the considerate thing to do.
A rep for Amanda spoke to TMZ in response to the suit, and honestly, what they said is comical: “There was miscommunication between Amanda and the brand. Amanda didn’t have full confidence in what she was advertising, and was trying to negotiate with the brand to cancel the deal. We are working to settle this privately.”
Girl, what? She didn’t lack confidence that the bag was cute enough to post in three different photos, did she? If she decided she didn’t want to continue working with the store, that’s fine, but she still accepted a $3,000 gift from them. It seems like an Instagram tag was the least she could do, whether it was technically required or not. If she was really trying that hard to “cancel the deal” she probably should have left the bag in the package and returned it ASAP.
Amanda Stanton will definitely be fine, even if she has to shell out the $5,000, but let this be a lesson to all of us. Next time someone gives you a Chanel bag for free, make sure to tag them when you post it on Instagram. This might not sound relatable, but I’m really trying to manifest some free Chanel in my life, so just go with it.
Images: Shutterstock; amanda_stantonn (2) / Instagram
