Anyone with a Facebook account knows about LuLaRoe — the multilevel marketing company whose leggings are sold predominantly by women via their social media accounts.
Most also know that it’s essentially a pyramid scheme, where advancement and profits for employees are based more on recruitment than sales. And in fact, earlier this year the company paid out $4.75 million to settle a lawsuit claiming LuLaRoe deceived some 3,000 Washington state residents to get them involved in selling.
A new documentary series, “LuLaRich,” aims to lay all of this bare for the masses.
The new series, produced by Amazon Prime Video, features former sellers and employees sharing their experiences working for the company. It also includes LuLaRoe co-founders DeAnne and Mark Stidham, who claim during their interview to “want to see women succeed” by offering “confidence and security” to its team.
Yet the bulk of the trailer suggests a far more toxic, even predatory culture, where some women were apparently selling breast milk to afford the buy-in costs that come with signing on or facing foreclosure after getting in too deep, while others who managed to turn profits pursued weight-loss surgeries to project a specific image of success.
“‘LuLaRich’ is a modern comedy of errors with important social commentary,” co-directors and executive producers Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason told Variety. “We knew from day one that the world needed another look at this wacky MLM-turned-dumpster-fire.”
As one interviewee stated, “It seemed too good to be true — and it was.”
“LuLaRich” will premiere in September.
