(JTA) — A JC Penney tea kettle resembling Adolf Hitler sold out online.
JC Penney, which had come under fire this week for advertising and selling the space-saving tea kettle, sold out the item on its website by Tuesday afternoon, according to reports. The retailer’s site said the Bells and Whistles Stainless Steel Tea Kettle, which was designed by American architect Michael Graves, is back ordered until June 26.
Following the Memorial Day weekend, JC Penney also removed a 10-foot-high billboard near Culver City, Calif., advertising the item. The tea kettle and its resemblance to Hitler had caught the attention of commuters there, and photos and criticism of the kettle spread rapidly on social media sites, including Twitter, Facebook and Reddit.
JC Penney insisted that any resemblance to Hitler was purely coincidental.
“If we had designed it to look like something, we would have gone with a snowman or something fun 🙂 ,” the company tweeted.
The earliest review of the product on the JC Penney site is dated April 21. A review from May 28 titled Mein Tea Kettle lists as a con that the appliance “looks like Hitler.”
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