Good Gracious, Burger King Dropped A Nelly Meal
BK is following McDonald's lead with not one, but three new celebrity meals.
Celebrity fast food collaborations are dropping faster than biblical plagues. In the beginning, there was the McDonald's Travis Scott meal. Lo, the people wailed and gnashed their teeth, and the J Balvin meal came unto them. Fearsome horsemen delivered the BTS meal, followed by the Saweetie meal. Now, Burger King has come to worship at the altar of the rich and famous with not one, but three new celebrity meals. And everyone said amen.
Burger King's three new meals are collaborations with rapper Nelly, Brazilian pop star Anitta, and TikToker/e-boy/singer/Gen Z personality Lil Huddy. Lil Huddy is 19 and he wears big pants. That's all you need to know.
The collabs are part of a new BK series dubbed "Keep It Real Meals," ostensibly urging customers to... keep it real. "We invited celebs to get real with us by having them hand-select food from our Real menu to create meals that are worthy of their real names," the brand writes in a press release sent to The Takeout. Basically, Burger King is ditching the stage names and using celebrities' real names to promote... the Real Meals. Make sense? It might get confusing for those of you who didn't know that Nelly's legal name is actually Cornell Haynes Jr.
The meals are as follows:
- The Cornell Haynes, Jr. (Nelly) Meal: The classic flame-grilled Whopper topped with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, mayo and ketchup, served with small fries and a small Sprite.
- The Larissa Machado (Anitta) Meal: The Impossible™ Whopper with lettuce, tomato, pickles, ketchup and mustard, served with small fries and a small Sprite.
- The Chase Hudson (Lil Huddy) Meal: A Spicy Ch'King with cheese, served with four-piece mozzarella sticks and a 16-ounce chocolate shake.
The "Real Meals" moniker is connected to another BK announcement: per the press release, the brand is "banning" 120 "artificial ingredients" from its food, promoting more "real" ingredients. "We know our guests' expectations are changing, and they want to make choices they can feel good about," said Ellie Doty, Chief Marketing Officer, Burger King North America. "By banning these 120 ingredients from our food, we're offering guests an easy choice – delicious food made with quality ingredients."
Keep in mind that the "ban" doesn't necessarily represent real change to the Burger King menu. A BK spokesperson tells us that the brand started "eliminating artificial ingredients" from its menu in 2015, working to serve "the realest food possible" ever since. The brand rep claims that BK has reformulated more than 80 products to meet the standards—but as far as I can tell, that mostly looks like switching from standard Heinz Ketchup to Simply Heinz Ketchup.
Anyway, I'm still a little confused about the "Real Meals" campaign. Are these three celebrities in question famous for... keeping it real? Maybe, maybe not. But if you're into celeb fast food meals, it's nice to have options.