During the week of Aug. 5, what appeared to be Alix Earle’s old ASKfm posts resurfaced online. The posts included several instances of racial slurs, specifically pertaining to Black and brown people of color. On Aug. 26, Earle addressed the posts, writing on her Instagram Story in part, “I am taking accountability … That is absolutely not the way I speak or what I stand for.” Her statement came after an Aug. 13 episode of the Do We Know Them? podcast — hosted by Jessi Smiles and Lily Marston — which rehashed the controversy, and alleged that Alix Earle trademarked the ASKfm posts and that her legal team threatened to sue them for discussing the posts on their podcast. Earle denied this in a comment on the Her Campus Instagram on Aug. 26, saying, “This is absolutely not true. Just posted about this on my story.”
On the Aug. 13 episode of Do We Know Them? Smiles and Marston claimed that Earle’s team reached out to them after a fan posted about Earle’s controversy on the podcast’s subreddit. “They emailed us, first of all, thinking that we have any control or association with our subreddit even though it is stated multiple times on every single post that we have no affiliation with that,” Smiles said. “We don’t moderate it, we don’t have any access to it.”
Smiles also claimed that Earle’s legal team accused the podcast of violating “a dozen laws” ranging from “money laundering” to copyright infringement by having screenshots of Earle’s apparent posts on the subreddit because they have a trademark. “Her lawyer said that they have a trademark to that,” Smiles said. “Which is like, you trademarked her racist ASKfm things?” Her Campus reached out to Earle’s team for clarity into what the trademark that was allegedly mentioned was for, but did not hear back at the time of publication.Â
The Do We Know Them? podcast tells Her Campus, “As of Aug. 26, we haven’t received any other communication from Alix or her legal team. We were just sharing the email we received from what we believed to be her behalf.”
Now, trademarks are actually public record — so, it’s fairly simple to see what celebrities are trademarking. A quick search on the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) can show you exactly how public figures are trademarking their names. On the USPTO website, Alix Earle has trademarked her name, but there’s no record of her trademarking anything specific in regard to her old apparent posts.
Earle posted her official statement on her Instagram story on Aug. 26, writing “I am taking accountability and want to make it clear that I was 13 years old and did not understand the deeply offensive meaning behind that word.” Earle continued, “That is no excuse for using that word in any context or at any age. That absolutely is not the way I speak or what I stand for.”
Earle also wrote, “In the absence of addressing this, my silence allowed others to fill the void with rumors that simply aren’t true. One rumor in particular is that I tried to trademark my old posts, which is absolutely ridiculous and untrue.” Earle’s statement didn’t mention whether or not her legal team sent a letter to the Do We Know Them? podcast to take the screenshots down from the subreddit. Her Campus reached out for confirmation but did not hear back by the time of publication.