The worst moment in a crisis is rarely the incident itself. It’s the few seconds after, when someone has to decide what to say. For the founder of a fast-growing Australian activewear brand, those seconds happened on a livestream, and the choice she made in them has cost her business ambassadors, customers and two weeks of headlines.
The Kikiva Collection case is a sharp lesson for any company whose brand is tied to a recognizable founder, and for any leader who goes live on camera. It shows how a first response can turn a problem someone else created into one you own, and why each later apology has to work harder than the one before it.
What Happened
On October 9, Kia Buckley, the 24-year-old founder of Perth-based Kikiva Collection, was livestreaming on TikTok from her home while doing her makeup and chatting with viewers. According to B&T and news.com.au, her sister walked in and could be heard using the N-word. Buckley told her sister she was live, kept the stream going, and when viewers asked about it, told them her sister had actually said “what’s up, sissys.” (One student outlet, ECU Vanguard, describes the stream as an Instagram Live; the mainstream coverage identifies it as TikTok.)
Screen recordings spread quickly. ECU Vanguard reports that customers began posting videos of themselves throwing out their Kikiva gear.
On October 15, Buckley posted a written apology to her TikTok story, reported by PerthNow. She said she was “deeply shocked, disappointed and upset,” that she did not condone racism in any form, and that she had ended the live, spoken to the family member, and been told they felt “genuine remorse.” She said she hadn’t addressed it sooner because she had been recovering in hospital after surgery. The statement described a slur used “in the background off camera” but did not address her own on-air explanation.
That statement did little to slow the backlash. Around October 21, Buckley posted a tearful video apology, and the brand issued a separate statement on Instagram. In the video, quoted by PerthNow, she said, “I know I have handled this terribly, and I know my statement was wrong,” and apologized directly “for trying to cover up the racial slur.” The company statement said Buckley “unreservedly apologises for walking past a standard we should never accept,” added that “an apology isn’t enough,” and committed that everyone in the business, including Buckley, would complete cultural and historical learning, and that she would meet with Elders and community knowledge holders.
By then the damage had spread. Model Vimbayi Hakutangwi, who had worked with the brand for more than three years, ended the relationship, and B&T reports other collaborators and influencers, including a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, also cut ties or ruled out future work. News.com.au reports that both Buckley and the Kikiva accounts disabled comments across their platforms. All of this came just months after the brand opened its first physical store at Perth’s Karrinyup Shopping Centre in August.
What’s Verified and What’s Alleged
It helps to separate the record from the noise. The slur, Buckley’s on-air “sissys” explanation, the dates and wording of both apologies, the brand statement and the departures of named ambassadors are all documented in published reporting and in the posts themselves. Buckley’s own later video confirms she tried to cover up what was said.
Other claims are less settled. PerthNow notes Reddit users alleging that Buckley deleted comments about the incident in the days before her first statement; that remains an online claim, not something the company has confirmed. Buckley’s hospital explanation for the delay is her own account. And while reporting describes customers discarding products, there is no public data on sales impact.
Who Has a Stake
- Customers, especially those who felt the brand’s community included them and now question whether it does.
- Ambassadors and collaborators, whose own reputations are tied to the label they promote.
- First Nations and Black communities in Australia and beyond, who are most directly harmed by the slur and by attempts to brush it aside.
- Employees, who will carry the brand into stores and customer conversations while the story plays out.
- Retail partners, including the shopping center where Kikiva just opened, which care about who they host.
How the Response Measures Up
W. Timothy Coombs’ Situational Crisis Communication Theory is a useful lens here. SCCT starts by asking how much responsibility stakeholders assign to the organization. A slur shouted by a family member, off camera, could have been treated by audiences as something that happened to Buckley. Her instant cover-up changed that. The moment she told viewers it hadn’t been said, she moved the crisis from “something happened on my stream” to “I misled you about it,” which is the kind of preventable, high-responsibility situation SCCT says calls for full accommodation: a real apology plus corrective action.
Measured against that, the first apology fell short. It arrived six days later, framed the slur as something in the background, and said nothing about the false explanation that most people were actually angry about. When the original misstep is a cover-up, an apology that leaves the cover-up out reads as a second one.
The second round was much stronger. Buckley named exactly what she did wrong, took responsibility without qualifiers, and the brand paired the apology with specific commitments. “An apology isn’t enough” is the right instinct. The weakness is that the commitments are inputs, such as training and meetings, with no timeline and no public way to measure them. Disabling comments is understandable as a way to protect staff from abuse, but it also signals that the brand is talking rather than listening, at the exact moment it says it wants to listen.
What Kikiva Should Do Next
- Put dates on the promises. Say when the training will be completed, who is delivering it, and when the company will report back on what it learned.
- Let the community speak first. If the meetings with Elders happen, the most credible update will come from the people Buckley met with, with their permission, not from a branded post.
- Reopen the conversation carefully. Moderated comments or a direct feedback channel would show the brand can handle criticism rather than shutting it off.
- Reach out to departed ambassadors privately. Not to win them back publicly, but to acknowledge the position the brand put them in.
- Separate founder and company channels for a while. Let the company account carry operational updates so every post doesn’t restart the founder story.
Takeaways for Any Business
- Your first words are the crisis. Under pressure, the instinct is to minimize. A simple “That’s not okay, and I’m ending the live” would likely have ended the story that night.
- Never deny what people can replay. Anything said on a livestream is recorded by someone. A denial that video can disprove turns a bystander into the subject.
- Apologize for what people are actually upset about. Ask what your stakeholders are reacting to before you write the statement, and address that first.
- Speed matters, but completeness matters more. A fast, incomplete apology forces a second one, and each round costs credibility.
- Founder-led brands need a plan for the founder. If your company’s identity runs through one person’s personal accounts, build a live-content protocol and a crisis plan around that person, including who can step in when they can’t.
- Corrective action needs to be visible and measurable. Training and listening sessions are good starts. Deadlines and public follow-up are what make them believable.
Kikiva may still recover. Small brands with loyal communities sometimes do, if the follow-through matches the words. But this case is a reminder that the hardest crisis to manage is the one you create in the first ten seconds of reacting to someone else’s.
If your business relies on a founder, influencers or live content and you want a plan for those first ten seconds, schedule a consultation and let’s build it together before you need it.