A US-based tech company dropped its Olympics advertising following an apparent parody of the Last Supper that took place at the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
C Spire, a Mississippi-based technology company, posted on X that it would pull its ads from the NBC-broadcast Olympics. The company wouldn’t say how much it had initially spent on advertisements or whether their money had been returned.
“We were shocked by the mockery of the Last Supper during the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics,” the post on X reads. “C Spire will be pulling our advertising from the Olympics.”
The post garnered over 9 million views.
“C Spire is supportive of [USA] athletes who have worked so hard to be a part of the Olympics. However, we will not be a part of the offensive and unacceptable mockery of the Last Supper, which is why we’re pulling our advertising from the Olympics,” the company’s president and CEO said in a statement to the New York Post.
Thomas Jolly, the artistic director of the opening ceremony, claims the production was a symbol of “inclusion” and not a mockery of religion. He claimed in a statement that the goal of the dance was to be “diverse” and “diversity means being together.”
“We wanted to include everyone, as simple as that,” Jolly said. “We are lucky in France to live in a free country. I didn’t have any specific messages that I wanted to deliver. In France, we are republic, we have the right to love whom we want, we have the right not to be worshipers, we have a lot of rights and France, and this is what I wanted to convey.”
Religious conservatives in the US thanked C Spire for standing up to what many see as a non-apology and mockery of faith and Christianity.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves tweeted his appreciation for the business’ decision to remove ads. Reeves said C Spire “drew a common-sense, appropriate line.”
This piece first appeared at TPUSA.
