207: Adam Levine's PR Response: What Went Right and What Went Wrong

I'm just gonna rip the band aid off because I've retaken this like 10 times now. Essentially, I was having an affair with a man who's married to a Victoria's Secret model. At the time, you know, I was young, I was naive, and I mean, quite frankly, I feel exploited. I wasn't in the scene like I am now. Oh, you are now, Sumner. With over 21 million views on this video, Instagram model Sumner Stroh created a lasting memory from from Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine. Welcome to the Indestructible PR Podcast, where we use current events and tested media and PR strategies to help prevent or manage a crisis and build an indestructible reputation. In this episode, I'll share with you some key takeaways from how Adam Levine responded to his PR crisis in the fallout of the video posted by Sumner Stroh and the one mistake he made, a big M you never want to repeat in a PR crisis. In today's digital age, it is easier than ever for a PR crisis to spiral out of control. And if you are caught doing something, it can get even worse. That is when you have to explain for a particular behavior. So in this podcast, let's discuss the consequences when you make a mistake like this in a PR response and why you should avoid it at all costs. Now, most people know Adam Levine as the frontman for the popular band Maroon 5 or as one of the judges on the NBC series the Voice, another competition show, as Simon Cowell will say, even though he's not on that program. But what many people only recently found out is that Levine also has a long history of flirting with women. Surprised? Well, not really. After all, he is a lead singer of a rock band. I mean, not to disparage all people in rock groups, but, you know, with there's an expectation there, I don't think people would be too surprised to hear it. But what surprised me was how he handled the crisis when more sordid details of his personal life spilled out online last week. So let's take a look at what happened and see if we can learn something from a mistake that he made. So hopefully you don't make the mistake if this unfortunately ever happens to you. But really, as an editor's note here, let's hope that it doesn't. All right, so last week, a viral TikTok is shared online from model Sumner Stroh. Naturally, as a middle aged mother on a soccer field, I needed to respond right away. I was tagged on the post multiple, multiple times. And since I Am certain that my daughter does not, my high school senior does not listen to my podcast. I can share that the game was really an abysmal soccer game at this point. And it was freezing and it was raining and I thought, you know what? Why not? And then she ended up telling me last night when we were talking about it at dinner, she said, oh, by the way, don't think I didn't see you filming across the field. But I didn't spend that much time doing it. But at any rate, I did something that you should never do. Hey, there's a podcast episode. How not to record a podcast that has a chance of going viral, or a podcast or a TikTok. Because I'm just sitting there on the sidelines. And when you're just riffing, that's when dangerous things can happen. So I am not following my own advice. But at any rate, Sumner Stro, an Instagram model, posted a video revealing that she had a year long affair with Levine. She also shared screenshots of alleged private messages from Levine and one purportedly that was from past June. So Stroh was saying that she came forward because a friend tried to sell the screenshots to a tabloid. Okay, I mean, I, I think we've heard this now. Why she did it is not that important. Now, in TikTok land it is. There's a lot of people out there that gave various opinions on the motivations behind her revealing the news. I say in PR crisis, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Except it does matter when you're the person who needs a response to it. Because one of the keys for knowing how to respond to a crisis, especially if you're dealing with another person, it's not, it's not an event or an unforeseen circumstance, for instance, but another person, not person who wants to do you personal harm, but they want to do reputational harm. Have they done reputational harm? It is incredibly helpful to understand what they're thinking and what their motivations are like. What's the intent behind putting out this information? I think it's incredibly important to do that. If I were, if I were responding in this manner with a client. Well, once this TikTok post went viral, Sumner started to respond to the thousands of comments. So she created a part two video, which I think was a mistake. And it's understandable because when you need to correct something that's already out there, it's already gone viral. The only way you can correct it, you can't pull it down you just have to come up with a follow up, like a course correction. But what she ended up doing in this video was discussing hindsight and initially what she wanted to do, to talk about how remorseful she felt and how embarrassed and disgusted she was. She didn't want people to look at it, be like, oh, she's playing the victim. And here's where I start to believe Sumner Strode. Now, why this matters is because Levine's team needs to determine who they're up against, who the opponent is against, who they're up against. And in a parallel work environment, I was doing the same thing in my job with a client. We were trying to get into the head of their opponent. I mean, it was literally happening at the same time that I was analyzing what was happening with Adam Levine and Summer Stroh. I was doing the same thing with a client, a client who is dealing with a former employee who is creating a lot of noise in their business. And so what I needed to do was get in the head of this person and try and predict what they were going to do and what they were thinking. How much strength did this person have? Like, I was looking, like, what. What was fueling this person and how could we stop it? And I was doing the same thing in my analysis with Sumner Stroh and the response with Adam Levine. So I'm going to read the post, the response that Adam Levine posted. What was good about it wasn't what wasn't so good about it. But before I do that, here's an important part of this crisis that I tried to express in my post, which was this. And I got a lot of pushback. I want to be very clear there. I had stated in a response that, you know, step one, you all know, you have to acknowledge what happened. You have to tell the truth, what happened. You don't want to wordsmith too much. No euphemisms. Like, you just have to, as in the words of Sumner story, you have to rip off the band aid. You have to tell the truth because you need to get through it. It's the only way you can get through it. Otherwise, people are going to pick. Pick everything you say apart. And if they have to pick things apart to try and figure out what you're trying to say, then it's not a good statement. Simple as that. But you have to also look at the motivation. And I had stated that Sumner Stro, this Instagram model, was a victim along with Adam Levine's wife. Oh, I forgot to mention, he's married, has kids, has One on the way. You still need to show remorse for hurting someone. So the pushback that I got was she doesn't deserve an apology. She's. She's the one who did it. She knew he was married. I get it, I get it, I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But she's still hurt, right? And what this does is people do not jump on TikTok and blow up a guy's life and blow up their life. It's like a hand grenade that she's, like, having two hand grenades. She threw one at Adam Levine, and then she kept one in her hand. Okay? You don't do that unless there's a reason. Okay, so Adam Levine did something to her off the page that no one knows about. He did something. It could have been as simple as ghosting her, but he could have done something else. And I had. I had said in my TikTok post that it had. It felt like it was a redux of Matt Lauer with the producer. I had a podcast episode. God, I feel like I'd said about him recently, too, but it sounded like he ghosted the producer, and the producer said, oh, yeah, okay, well, I will put my reputation online just to out you, to bring you down, because that's what happens when people get angry. Same thing with my client. When someone is so angry, they need to let it out and they need to do something so you feel their pain, and that's what they do. And so this is what happens in these PR crises. They want the person to feel the same pain. And that's why I felt that he needed to show some remorse, to hurt for whatever he did. He could have very easily have said, for the hurt that I've caused. Not only Sumner, others, you know, whatever. So that's why I said that. It's not that she's completely exonerated from what she did. I mean, clearly she had an affair with a married man. I mean, she kind of got what she deserved, right? Isn't that what the term just desserts comes from? There's a consequence to that, and she's paying it. But he did something to her. So let's read the statement from Adam Levine. So this is what I noted in the statement. 1. Let's do the background. I had said on my TikTok. There are two things to look here for. Usually in a statement, I look at the forensics of the statement. The who, what, why, where, and when. Where was it posted? Why? Let's look for any clues into what was really going on. Like what are they really attempting to do here? And the second piece is the intent. Like, are they trying to show full remorse, accountability? Are they just trying to get through it? Are they lying? You know, what is the intent? So let me read the statement. It's brief and tell you what I think. Now, first of all, let's talk about where it was posted. It was posted to Instagram. Not just Instagram, like the grid where people could go to it. Like you could go to it today, Instagram stories, which means it was posted and now it's gone after 24 hours. Now you can just google it and we'll show up in many places, but the stories is going to disappear. This also means there is an ability for anyone to leave a comment. So we're not going to see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of comments blasting Adam Levine. Same thing with Twitter. You're removing the comment ability. So instead of having an Instagram post or Twitter post where it says, like removing comments, well, in Instagram re turn off comments stories doesn't allow the feature to even exist at all. So people will have to comment off platform, which is an ideal, very strategic move, even though we know it's going to get picked up in a lot of different places. It's also made for one social media graphic. So you don't have to say a lot of words, right? If you were releasing a statement in like a press release format, if it's a media statement and it gets shared, then you just copy and paste and be paragraph, paragraph long. In this case, it was only two paragraphs. Let me read it. This is from Adam Levine. Quote, a lot is being said about me right now and I want to clear the air. I use poor judgment in speaking with anyone other than my wife in any all caps, kind of flirtatious manner. I did not have an affair. Nevertheless, I crossed the line during a regrettable period in my life. In certain instances, it became inappropriate. I've addressed that and taken proactive steps to remedy this with my family. My wife and my family is all I care about in this world. Adam continued to be this naive and stupid enough to risk. The only thing that truly matters to me was the greatest mistake I could ever make. I will never make it again. I take full responsibility. We will get through it together. End quote. Okay, what's going on here? It's brief. It is written like Adam Levine wrote it, which I think is good. It wasn't written by a skilled writer. So that we have some, you know, I think intentional, average writing. Let's Just call it in there. And I think that's pretty smart, actually. Put a little bad grammar in there. You know, why not? He's a singer. He's not a writer. I mean, you could be a songwriter, but grammar doesn't matter. Right? But let's. Let's break this down. What we want usually in the first statement, right away in these types of statements is we want accountability or we want to show. We want to acknowledge what happened. Levine's first statement is, a lot is being said about me right now, and I want to clear the air. All right? So right there, we're saying. I think he's framing it. We're just painting this more as gossip. I'm just going to correct gossip, not the truth gossip. I use poor judgment in speaking with anyone other than my wife in any kind of flirtatious manner. I really don't know what that statement means, but I know what its intent is, and that is to say he is only guilty of speaking to someone else. Okay, I don't know. I've been married. I don't remember that in the vows. That you can't speak to people of the opposite sex. And this is news to me. But here we are. This is the framing. He wants us to believe that the only thing he's guilty of is flirting. The third line. I did not have an affair. Okay, comma. Nevertheless. So we've moved through that awfully quick. Oh, there's nothing to see here. I did not have an affair. However, that is. You are planting a flag right in the ground right there. I did not have an affair. That means you have to stick with that. And this is dangerous. And I said that in my. In my TikTok post. That's. If that's not true, that statement is now called a lie. Nevertheless, I crossed the line during a regrettable period in my life. That's to give us some type of hint that it was a. It was a rough time for him. It could be anything. He was struggling with something. It doesn't matter. We're not supposed to know what he struggled with. We're just supposed to know there was something regrettable happening in his life. In certain instances, it became inappropriate. Only uncertain. Not at all, but just certain. I've addressed that and taken proactive steps to remedy this with my family. We don't know who he's addressed it to, implying that it's with his family. My wife and family is all I care about in this world. Adam continued to be this naive and stupid enough to risk the only Thing that truly matters to me was the greatest mistake I could ever make. I think in that sentence he started with something else. This sounds like a rewrite. I think he wanted to say to be this naive and stupid. I would never. I think he wanted to say, I would never be this naive and stupid to risk. To take this risk. Therefore, I did not do anything. That's why I think he initially was writing the statement to say, no, it's completely false. That's where I think he was going. And I think someone, someone advised him, listen, Adam, you're a singer. People understand that singers have a fair and they step out on their wives. It's understandable. We gotta cop to something. Okay, you gotta cop to something. Otherwise people won't believe it. All right, moving on. We will get through it and we will get through it together. I guess that means his wife beyond. I guess. Okay, so that's the statement. You can see it anywhere now. Side Note, in my TikTok, I had put it behind me on a green screen and I was reading portions of it, but I did not allow for adequate time for people to pause the screen and read the statement. And boy, did I get blasted for not moving. Even my daughter, even my daughter away at college said something to me and she had noted that I had doubled down in a follow up post saying, yes, I didn't move because it was really more of an analysis, which is true. I wasn't doing the pause to read because in my mind I felt like it was everywhere anyway, and anyone could see it anyway, anywhere. But I, I should have said, I'm not going to show it. You should read it someplace else. So that was my mistake and I did a follow up post. But wow, kids, they, they will. TikTok is dangerous. It definitely is. And they will let you know when you get it wrong. As will thousands of commenters as well. But fair enough. But I came back to say it didn't matter what it said in the statement because I was said in this post. None of what he says here is even relevant if there are more women who are going to come out. So I didn't even believe that this post even mattered because there were going to be more women that, that were coming out. And that was the point of my post. And sure enough, more women came out and more women went on the record. So this is what we want to say here. So what is the, what is the grand takeaway that we can say about, about Adam Levine's post? Well, first, let's just assume that what he meant to say was true that he was only flirting and he only flirted with this one person. And it was a terribly regrettable thing to flirt with an Instagram model. And when you're a lead singer for Marine. But. So these are the things that you want to do when you really have to come clean for these sticky issues. Candor is best. It is, folks, you need to disclose as much as you can because if you don't, other people will pick it. Will pick it out and find it for you. They'll either scour it on the Internet or someone will come forward on your behalf. He very easily could have said and added which was a full mistake. He should have said that he's done this multiple times. There should have been some S attached to one of those words to indicate the plural. So when more people came out which knew was going to happen, he had to know it was going to happen. We don't even know these women and we knew it was going to happen. So certainly Levine knew that it was going to happen. Disclose as much as you can. Like, we need truth. That's the only way you can get through it. You want to also show empathy for a victim. It really is important, important that you take care of victims. In this case, it was his wife, it was his family, but also he did hurt someone else. So if he reaches out in a statement and says, I'm sorry for the person who I hurt, it's also going to calm down. Sumner Stro. Now, what I think, and I don't know, I'm not basing this on anything else other than pure strategy. I think his team paid her off or likely did something to make her go away, you know, just to contain it. That's why we're not hearing from her. Or as of this recording, we haven't heard anything from her. That may change by the time this comes out next week. But he also needs to show some type of restitution or penance. And we really like and what. And what he's learned. It doesn't sound like there's a lot of self reflection going on there, which is fine. Okay, whatever. He's a rock star and this is why he gets somewhat of a pass. Adam Levine, before all these other people came out, because the model followed up with a second post, she diminished her credibility a bit. So that allowed him an avenue to kind of wait out the response. So it took him a while to respond. He could wait it out and he was able to to skirt the line between full denial and just admitting some things because she raised questions about her motivation. Okay. By that follow up post, people were wondering what her intentions were and his team took advantage of that. So that's why he was able to release the post that he did. But the only thing is is that he wasn't honest in it. And that is the bottom line. So in every podcast I include one Indestructible PR tip, an easy to remember piece of advice that helps you manage a crisis and build your indestructible reputation. And here it is. The COVID up is always worse than the F up. That's all for this week on the podcast. Thank you so much for listening. If you want more advice and background information about how to respond to a crisis, you can always listen to my book Indestructible Reclaim Control and Respond with Confidence in a Media Crisis now on Audible. Thanks so much for listening. Bye for now. Sam.