Watch: Untangling the Molly Sims and Bobbi Brown Drama Over Jones Road Beauty’s New Makeup Line
Molly Sims isn’t trying to conceal her disappointment.
After Jones Road Beauty announced a new makeup line called “Wide Awake,” the model called out the brand and its founder Bobbi Brown for using the same name as she did for her YISE brand’s best-selling under eye cream.
“I don’t normally post stuff like this,” Sims, who founded YISE in 2023, said in a video shared to Instagram Sept. 19, “but over the last few days, I’ve had friends, customers, brand partners, retail partners DM, text, and email me that a brand that I love use and support not only use the exact name of a product I launched two years ago, but also their marketing copy and campaign feels a little too close to home.”
The 53-year-old—whose YISE Wide Awake Brightening Eye Cream hit shelves back in March 2024—went on to detail the challenge of making her products with such a small, passionate team.
“I have the privilege of working with a primarily female team who bust their freaking asses every day to make this dream happen,” she shared. “My marketing team of five—we are small, but we are mighty. We have tiny budgets. We are incredibly scrappy.”
That’s why she said she was so upset to learn that Jones Road Beauty’s collection had several similarities.
“There is room for all of us. All of us,” Sims said. “There is room for more women to build great brands, create great products, and have great ideas of their own. We should be inspiring each other, not taking from each other.”
Addressing Jones Road Beauty founder Bobbi Brown specifically, she added, “I can’t explain how disappointed—honestly, sad and hurt—I am to see this from another female founder who I’ve known for years and have looked up to in this industry.”
And Sims’ message didn’t go unanswered. Following the post, Brown herself offered an apology for using the name for her product.
“Last week, the Jones Road Beauty team and I launched Wide Awake neutralizer and concealer,” the makeup artist wrote in a statement shared to Instagram Sept. 21. “We didn’t realize Molly Sims has a product with the same name in her YISE beauty collection. This was a mistake.”
Photo by Robin Marchant/Getty Images / Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
Brown, 69, also emphasized that her team thought they had done their due diligence before debuting the product on Sept. 15.
As she put it, “Prior to our launch, a trademark search showed no other ownership of the name.”
And while a new moniker has yet to be announced, Brown insisted that they would be going in a different direction as a result of the debacle.
“We’re changing our product name moving forward, and will no longer call it Wide Awake,” she said. “I would never knowingly copy another product’s name.”
Closing out her note, Brown offered a direct apology to Sims, saying, “To Molly Sims and her team at YISE, I’m sorry this happened, and we’re taking steps to correct it.”
For more stars who have had public disagreements, keep reading.
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