Peloton Is Getting Really Sick of TV Characters Having Heart Attacks on Their Bikes
Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones once said there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but after this weekend, Peloton might be inclined to disagree.
The brand has once again found itself in a PR nightmare after another television show featured a character suffering a heart attack after using one of Peloton’s stationary bicycles. On Friday, the season 6 premiere of Showtime’s Billions saw a prominent character rushed to the hospital with chest pains after riding a Peloton bike. The episode aired just weeks after Mr. Big’s shocking, Peloton-induced death in the series premiere of HBO Max’s Sex and the City reboot, And Just Like That…
Unlike Chris Noth’s And Just Like That… character, Mike “Wags” Wagner, played by David Costabile on Billions, survived his cardiac event. He even made a nod to the déjà vu of it all, saying in the episode, “I’m not going out like Mr. Big.” The New York Times reported that the parallel plots were completely coincidental, with Billions wrapping months before the Sex and the City reboot premiered, but the winking reference was added in post-production.