Candace Owens Says Kim Kardashian Has No 'Soul' for Staying With Balenciaga

Candace Owens has accused Kim Kardashian of having no "soul" for not immediately cutting ties with Balenciaga in the wake of the fashion house's widely-criticized campaign images featuring children.

Balenciaga faced backlash in recent days for since-deleted campaign images shown on its website that included toddlers holding the company's teddy bear handbags. The stuffed toys appeared to be dressed in bondage gear, such as fishnet shirts and studded leather harnesses and collars.

Following days of criticism, Balenciaga brand ambassador Kardashian said in a statement shared Sunday on Twitter that she was "disgusted" and "shaken" by the images. Other public figures have also criticized the photos.

After Owens criticized Kardashian's response to the scandal on Twitter, the conservative commentator went into further detail on her eponymous podcast on Monday.

Owens started by sharing the first part of Kardashian's statement, which read: "I have been quiet for the past few days, not because I haven't been disgusted and outraged by the recent Balenciaga campaigns, but because I wanted an opportunity to speak to its team to understand for myself how this could have happened."

"That is stupid, Kim," Owens said in response. "You want us to believe that you took six days because you were just trying to understand what happened? Something that we all understood within minutes of seeing the photo."

Stating that the children in the photos were "taken advantage of" by "sickos and weirdos," Owens scoffed at the idea that Kardashian "had to send an email to an info box at Balenciaga as if you're not Kim Kardashian, who can pick up the phone, call the CEO, call the creative director, call the stylist directly and say, 'What the hell is this?' and get an immediate answer.

"But no, you think we're all so stupid that we're going to believe that it took you some time to understand what happened. Needed time to process," Owens added.

Owens then imitated a fictitious scenario where Kardashian cried to her mother, Kris Jenner, about the situation, and imagined the matriarch advising the star that things would soon blow over because the scandal arose during Thanksgiving.

Addressing Kardashian, Owens said: "Your strategy was to be quiet and hope that the scandal blew over. Hope that everyone would get lost in turkey and be too tired to talk about it."

Pointing out that criticism of the brand persistently trended on social media, Owens continued: "And then your name started trending and you realized about the third time that I hit you on Instagram and millions of people were in your comments...that it wasn't going to go away. So you then drummed up this statement."

Owens then shared the next part of Kardashian's statement, which read: "As a mother of four, I have been shaken by the disturbing images. The safety of children must be held with the highest regard and any attempts to normalize child abuse of any kind should have no place in our society—period."

"OK, I agree with that. Wonderful," Owens said. "That has no place in our society. It needs to be condemned. We're not going to normalize it. Give it to me, Kim. Tell us you're done with Balenciaga. No, that's not what she does."

The TV personality read the concluding part of Kardashian's statement, in which she wrote: "As for my future with Balenciaga, I am currently re-evaluating my relationship with the brand, basing it off its willingness to accept accountability for something that should have never happened to begin with—& the actions I am expecting to see it take to protect children."

"So what she did there was she said, 'as a mother,' so that we would all go, 'Oh yes. I'm a mom, I feel you. I love you, Kim. What else?' And then she said, 'I'm still gonna wear Balenciaga...because they apologized and they took down the images. And now I'm telling you guys that you need to forget about it because it took accountability for their child pornography."

Honing in on Kardashian's use of the word "re-evaluating," Owens asked: "How many times is a celebrity PR person gonna keep using that word? What it really means when they say, 'I'm re-evaluating,' it means, 'I'm giving it some time for you guys to forget about it, waiting for the next scandal to come about, so that you guys will leave me alone and I can continue to drip myself in Balenciaga and get free...bags and get money and get cash and get sponsorships with them and get invited to their shows because I'm Kim Kardashian and I don't have a soul.'

"Everybody, stop pretending that Kim Kardashian has a soul," Owens said. "I'm done with this. I'm done with the idea that every time she cries, 'It's really hurting.' The only thing that hurts Kim Kardashian is the idea that she's not going to be invited to the Met Gala, is the idea that she's not going to become more famous, is the idea that she's not going to be able to call up Anna Wintour and she's not going to make it on the cover of Vogue."

Owens continued: "I told you before that she prostitutes herself for fame. She's done it since the very beginning. She's willing to go so far as continuing that relationship with fame that child pedophilia and pornography does not disrupt this girl for a single second.

"What she is dealing with right now is trying to figure out how to make you all forget about it so that you still buy her SKIMS [shapewear] and her skin products and you still see her as a victim of everything...She's just gonna ride out the wave.

"Absolutely despicable, and no, we're not gonna just forget about it, Kimmy," Owens concluded. "We're gonna keep the heat on you, because as a mother of two, as I am, this is where I draw the line. And I think that you need to be called out for your selfishness. It is easy to walk away from Balenciaga and Adidas. They did it to your husband in about 30 seconds after one tweet."

Kardashian's ex-husband, Kanye West, lost lucrative business deals with Balenciaga and Adidas in October after the musician made antisemitic comments on social media and in interviews. Amid public criticism from West, Adidas had been already reviewing its relationship with the star before his antisemitic comments.

Balenciaga recently came under fire for its Balenciaga Objects collection ad campaign, titled "Balenciaga Gift Shop," which was shot by Gabriele Galimberti.

Galimberti told Newsweek he was not responsible for the content of the images in the photo shoot, including the children with the toy bears in fishnet shirts, studded leather harnesses, and collars.

"I am not in a position to comment [on] Balenciaga's choices, but I must stress that I was not entitled in whatsoever manner to neither chose the products, nor the models, nor the combination of the same," Galimberti said.

"As a photographer, I was only and solely requested to lit the given scene and take the shots according to my signature style. As usual, the direction of the campaign and of the shooting are not [in] the hands of the photographer."

In a Balenciaga photoshoot for its new joint campaign with Adidas, shot by Chris Maggio, people noticed a pile of papers that included a page from the 2008 Supreme Court ruling United States v. Williams.

The ruling upheld the PROTECT Act, a 2003 federal law that criminalizes advertising, promoting, presenting or distributing child pornography. Its acronym stands for Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today.

Newsweek reached out to a representative of Kardashian for comment.