The Cheesecake Shop tried to joke about the Alan Joyce pie attack
The Cheesecake Shop wrote an open letter about the Alan Joyce pie attack and it has made people mad.
Joyce, who is openly gay, was speaking on stage at a business event in Perth, Western Australia, when a protester walked up behind him and thrust a lemon meringue pie in his face.
The gay Qantas CEO remained calm during the attack, which was carried out by 67-year-old Tony Overheu.
Overheu, who has since been charged with assault, claimed that he attacked Joyce because of his staunch support for equal marriage.
“From my reading, it would appear that Alan Joyce is very much part of a network trying to subvert the federal parliamentary process around the issue of marriage equality,” Overheu said.
Since the incident, Joyce has pledged to fight even harder for equal marriage.
The Cheesecake Shop is believed to have made the pie that was used in the attack, and company decided to write a letter about in on their Facebook page.
The letter, which has since been deleted, apologised for being connected to the incident but went on to say “we are also a little concerned that your recent tasting of our delicious Lemon Meringue was not appreciated to its full sweetness.”
The company then invited Joyce to sample pie in their store.
“We would also be happy to offer you the chance to savour any of our other baked in store cakes including tortes, mud cake, pavlovas, cheesecakes and perhaps a generous serve of humble pie.”
The letter, unsurprisingly, did not go down well with customers.
Many were enraged that the store had attempted to use the attack to sell their product, while others were annoyed that they did not use the opportunity to support the equal marriage cause.
Most were confused about why Joyce would need to “eat humble pie”.
“Care to explain why a man who had a pie smashed into his face for supporting the gay and lesbian community needs to eat ‘a generous serve of humble pie’?,” one person wrote.
Another person wrote: “The perpetrator of that assault (because that’s what it is) has openly stated that it was a protest against marriage equality. Making a cheap joke out of that doesn’t taste so sweet to me.”
“How on earth is that an appropriate response to someone being assaulted?” somebody else asked.
Following the outrage, the shop commented on the post expressing their regret.
“On reflection, and judging by the reaction to The Cheesecake Shop’s letter to Alan Joyce yesterday, we have shown a lack of sensitivity on this matter. We deeply apologise to all who were offended. Our letter should not have made light of this situation.”
A spokesperson for the company added that it was “poor judgement” to post the letter.
“It was poor thinking and poor judgement by our brand to write the post, that’s not the approach we should have taken,” they told BuzzFeed.
