You can be forgiven for thinking this story is about Travis Bickle, the psychopathic protagonist from Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi Driver, played by Robert DeNiro, but no. This story is about Miami’s most affable, jet ski-loving musical personality, DJ Khaled. Apparently, like Bickle, Khaled recently ate his favorite breakfast cereal, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, with a little douse of Ciroc vodka and Belaire sparkling wine instead of regular old milk, which is fine — if not gross — by itself, but now he’s in hot water, because he filmed the act and shared it with his millions of Snapchat followers, many of whom are minors.
According to a report from Truth in Advertising, a consumer watchdog group “Khaled also recommends Ciroc with homemade cookies, Ciroc ‘slushy style,’ Ciroc at lunch, dinner, in the shower,” adding, “There is every reason to believe that at least a substantial minority of Khaled’s followers are under age 21.” As a paid pitchman for Ciroc, who failed to disclose this role while making the videos, this is a significant no-no.
Since receiving a letter from Truth In Advertising, who conducted a 10-month long scrub of his social media networks, Khaled has taken down many of the offending videos and added the hashtag “#ad” to several more to avoid becoming the subject of a full-scale probe by the Federal Trade Commission.
