PureGym advertises ’12 Years Of Slave’ workout – saying “slavery was hard and so is this”

A branch of PureGym has been heavily criticised after it advertised a ’12 Years Of Slave’ workout to celebrate Black History Month.

The post was published on the chain’s Luton & Dunstable page on Monday and has since been deleted following a swift backlash.

“Entitled ‘12 Years Of Slave’ (after the epic movie) [sic] this is our workout of the month designed by Matt Simpson to celebrate black history month,” the accompanying wording said, adding: “Slavery was hard and so is this.”

There was furious backlash immediately after, with one person commenting that “this is EASILY the worst thing” they’ve ever seen any gym do.

PureGym posted an apology shortly after. Read their statement in full below:

Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.