Personal trainer ‘silenced for most of this year with threats’ from Sweaty Betty

Evening Standard

Georgina Cox on Instagram: 'I’ve been silenced for most of this year with threats from @sweatybetty.The impact it’s having on my physical and mental health has become too severe and I am forced to use my voice.They contacted me for permission to use my slogan, publicly thanked me, credited me - and then treated me like this.@sweatybetty position themselves as a brand who empowers women, but my treatment couldn’t be further from empowerment.'

Transcript

00:00Shaking as I do this. I'm suing the sportswear companies for eBay. Back in 2020 I'd had a

00:08conversation with my little sister about her struggling to wear clothing with someone coming

00:13up and I did a post called wear the damn shorts. That post ended up going viral. I think it reached

00:22like 140 million people. It was just shared everywhere by celebrities like Michelle Visage.

00:30I actually put it on her feed. It was like one of the best days of the life. Three years later

00:35I swear that he reached out to me, asked permission to use it for a campaign they were doing. Of

00:40course I said yes like I was so happy and then after it they text me like I hope we made you proud.

00:48The following year they contacted me, said they were doing the campaign again. They even did t-shirts.

00:55I honestly didn't fully appreciate the scale on which they were selling those t-shirts like with

01:01my words on them. Fast forward to this year and I don't find out about the campaign from the brand.

01:08I'm on my phone and I see coming tomorrow wear the damn shorts and I was so confused like why

01:17it's no one told me what's happening. It hurt so much. It's just felt like I have to defend myself

01:25here. So I sent an official cease and desist letter to them. If this is how you're going to treat me,

01:32I revoked permission and their response to me sending that letter was to lodge the campaign regardless.

01:40Blocked my name off their Instagram. Their lawyer got back to me and just said that I'm bitter.

01:47So after them calling me bitter, I wanted to just get some opinions and by doing that they threatened me

01:55to sue me. Some of the threats they did work. I was terrified and then it got to a point where we'd

02:02organise a settlement meeting and we would get a fair outcome for this situation. It is before they

02:09cancelled it and then just completely ignored our lives for nearly two months. They're meant to empower

02:17women. I feel silenced, present, belittled and I'm terrified now talking about it but if this had happened

02:27to anyone else I would tell them to defend themselves. My hair is falling out. I'm having panic attacks.

02:34I'm waking up with my hair racing and they're just dragging this out because they know that I can't

02:40afford to keep going as hard as this video is. They've already took my words. They've not taken my voice.

02:48I can't let them.

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