Rihanna urges fans to delete Snapchat after ad mocking assault by Brown

[March 16, 2018]  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pop star Rihanna urged fans on Thursday to delete Snapchat after the social media app ran an ad making fun of her 2009 beating at the hands of then boyfriend Chris Brown.

Shares of Snap Inc <SNAP.N>, the company that makes the app, were down 4.7 percent in trading on Thursday.

"SNAPCHAT I know you know you ain't my fav app out there! But I'm just trying to figure out what the point was with this mess!," the singer wrote on Instagram on Thursday.

"You spent money to animate something that would intentionally bring shame to DV victims and made a joke of it!!!," she added, referring to domestic violence. "Shame on you. Throw the whole app-oligy away."

The "Wild Thoughts" singer, 30, was speaking out after Snapchat earlier this week apologized and took down an advert on its platform for a mobile video game called "Would You Rather!"

The ad showed pictures of Rihanna and Brown with the captions "Slap Rihanna" and "Punch Chris Brown." Both the ad and the game were unaffiliated with Snapchat.

R&B singer Brown pleaded guilty to assaulting Rihanna in 2009 in an incident that made headlines around the world when a photo of her bruised face was released.

Snapchat on Thursday said the ad was "disgusting and never should have appeared on our service."

"We are so sorry we made the terrible mistake of allowing it through our review process. We are investigating how that happened so that we can make sure it never happens again,” the company said in a statement.

Rihanna's comments were the latest bad press for Snapchat. Its shares lost about $1.5 billion in market value in February after social media celebrity Kylie Jenner, who has as many as 105 million Instagram followers, tweeted that she did not like the Snapchat site's redesign.

Dozens of fans on Thursday tweeted that they were following Rihanna's call to delete the Snapchat app.

"Rihanna let them KNOW. RIP SNAPCHAT," tweeted a user with the Twitter handle @loveonthebrain.

"y'all thought kylie killed snapchat, but rihanna dragged it to the grave! RIP september 2011-march 2018," tweeted a user called cozy spice.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant. Additional reporting by David Ingram and Gina Cherelus; Editing by Tom Brown)

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