Spirit Airlines Mocks the Celeb Nude Photo Scandal for an Online Promotion

“Our bare fare was hacked,” reads the email from the airline to customers

File this one under both "too soon" and "who though this was a good idea?" And it can probably also be filed in the subfolder: "seriously?"

Spirit Airlines took advantage of the serious invasion of Jennifer Lawrence's and many other celebs privacy by making a joke about the nude photo scandal in a promotional email to customers on Wednesday.

"Our bare fare was hacked!" said the email that included a photo of a cartoon woman covering her naked chest. "We feel naked; you were never supposed to see this Bare Fare! It was meant for a special someone (who isn't you). Now it's all over the Internet for you to take advantage of as you see fit."

We understand the idea of jumping on a hot Internet story to promote a sale, but did it have to be this particular hot Internet story? And the photo they included (shown above) is just plain tasteless.

Obviously those who got the email reacted mostly in the same way: truly offended. After the backlash, Spirit Airlines removed the ad and replaced it with a different ad that is tied to the recent Knee Defender controversy.

In a statement to E! News, N. Paul Berry, director of public and media relations for Spirit Airlines says:

"The ad talks about our "Bare Fare" which is a campaign we launched in May. It was not meant to be offensive. Spirit isn't your typical airline. In most cases different means saving our customers a lot of money on their air travel. When it comes to advertising, different means finding ways to educate our customers about our fares and special offers, that don't require a lot of advertising dollars–because that just increases airfares. But we're also different because our ads are fun and often irreverent. We have a long history of taking major, national news stories and connecting them to our marketing.  Most people think they're funny, and accept them for what they are.  We realize and accept that a small group of people might not think the same way."

Sounds like it was more than a small group but...

Then again, this was much better than the extremely graphic U.S. Airways photo that went viral earlier this year. Remember that? Yikes.