OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell went into enemy territory to face late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and he brought the fire. The CEO even agreed to Kimmel’s request of having the interview done in an arcade-style claw machine with stuffed animals as part of his attempt to mock Lindell, but it did not work.
“Why don’t people take you seriously?” the host who was conducting an interview with a guest who was in a machine full of stuffed animals said.
“Mike, I know that you’re distrustful of machines, now that you’re inside one, do you feel differently?” Kimmel said mockingly at another part of the interview.
“Remember we were kids, and uh, we questioned these carnival games whether they were rigged or not, but when we spoke up back then, we didn’t get sued, did we?” he said when the interview began.
“Does that extend to like sewing machines? Yeah, tell me, like, what about ice machines, are you OK with those?” he said later.
“You can make fun of that, but we know the machines I’m talking about are voting machines, computers used in elections, because we want to have elections and not selections,” the CEO said.
“You tricked me, you did it to be funny, huh?” Lindell said, laughing.
“To be honest I don’t even remember why I decided you should be in there. It seemed like a good idea when it happened,” the host said.
“I have to say, I was very surprised when you said you’d do it,” he said.
The interview came after Bed, Bath & Beyond got smacked with a dose of karma after it removed MyPillow from its stores.
The retail giant is prepared to file for bankruptcy, possibly this week, and has liquidators in place to close more stores unless someone or some company purchases the company at the last minute, Reuters reported.
The timing of any bankruptcy filing was in flux Monday evening, with the U.S. home goods retailer’s advisers locked in meetings exploring any remaining options to avoid it, another person familiar with the matter said. Bed Bath & Beyond is negotiating a loan to help it navigate bankruptcy proceedings, with investment firm Sixth Street in talks to provide some funding, two of the people said. The firm loaned Bed Bath & Beyond $375 million last year. The chain, once considered a category killer in home goods like dinnerware and small appliances, has lined up liquidators who are readying store closing sales that could be launched as soon as this weekend, two of the people said.
The chain had previously announced it was closing 87 of its stores along with five buy buy BABY stores on top of the 150 closures it announced last year. Its health and beauty discount store Harmon is also closing.
The chain said in January 2021 that it would stop selling MyPillow because it was not performing to expectations and not because of its CEO, Mike Lindell’s, politics.
“As previously announced, we have been rationalizing our assortment to discontinue a number of underperforming items and brands. This includes the MyPillow product line,” a spokesperson for the company said to Yahoo Finance. “Our decisions are data-driven, customer-inspired, and are delivering substantial growth in our key destination categories.”
