US Embassy complained over Lady Gaga's fake Rolex tweet

The Commerce Ministry’s Intellectual Property Department has officially expressed its disappointment on her tweet to the US Embassy.
Lady Gaga posted her tweet shortly after her private jet arrived Wednesday night last week: "I just landed in Bangkok baby! Ready for 50,000 screaming Thai monsters. I wanna get lost in a lady market and buy fake Rolex."

Pajchima Tanasanti, director general of the department, said the government was very disappointed with Lady Gaga’s tweet during her visit last week that she wanted to shop for a fake Rolex in Bangkok, considering it offensive, insulting and creating a bad image for the country.

“Lady Gaga is a famous singer and an idol for youth and is well known by the public. She is also an owner of copyright and many intellectualproperty rights. She should take more responsibility before posting comments to the public,” Pajchima said.

The singer made the comment to her 24 million Twitter followers, sparking an uproar last Thursday in Thailand. She posted that she wanted to shop for a fake Rolex in a “lady market” in Bangkok. 

The department wrote to the US Embassy in Bangkok calling for her to show respect to the Kingdom. Thailand has demonstrated serious attempts to suppress IPR violations for a long time. Her post not only damaged the country’s image, but also those of Thai and foreign government agencies that have tried to cooperate in suppressing IP violations, the letter said.

Moreover, it said, Thailand has worked closely with the US Trade Representative and the International Intellectual Property Alliance to suppress counterfeiting of goods here for many years.

The department was strongly concerned that the singer’s behaviour would encourage other tourists to seek and shop for fake products in the country.