Harry Styles can do many things.
He can sing.
He can act.
He can wear gender-bending outfits with a David Bowie-like ease and flair.
Yes. Harry Styles can do many things. However, Harry Styles cannot catch a Skittles with his eye.
This much was found to be true during a recent concert in Los Angeles.
It happened at Styles’ mid-November performance at The Forum. Someone in the audience threw a handful of Skittles at the English rocker near the end of his show. Unfortunately, one of the seemingly innocuous candies struck Styles in his eye.
Here are two videos of the Skittles Incident that were posted on Twitter:
Clearly, there are better ways to entice a heartthrob to “taste the rainbow.”
Styles, 28, was thanking the crowd for its support when he was assailed by the sugary projectiles. He never missed a beat, though. (Music pun.) He kept waving and smiling to the audience, and then finished up the show, albeit with one eye mostly closed.
His rabid fanbase showed less grace in voicing their displeasure with the unidentified Skittles assaulter. Social feeds were, unsurprisingly, the go-to outlets of the nonplussed. Here’s one of our favorites:
Thankfully, Styles hasn’t appeared to have suffered major damage from the incident. (The world will just have to wait on Cyborg Styles.) His “Love on Tour” world tour has proceeded without a hitch. (Outside of this potentially dangerous moment at his concert in Bogota, Colombia.)
The Skittles official Twitter account took note of the L.A. incident, posting: “Didn’t think I needed to say this: Please don’t throw Skittles.”
A few days later, the company took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times that read: “Protect the rainbow. Taste the rainbow. But please, don’t throw the rainbow.”
A Dangerous Rainbow?
This isn’t the first auspicious mention of the candy in the news this year. A lawsuit surfaced over the summer against Skittles manufacturer Mars, Inc. regarding an ingredient used to make the sweet treat: the chemical titanium dioxide.
The class action lawsuit alleges that titanium dioxide is a known toxin that is harmful to humans. Research on the subject is mixed, though. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, along with Canada and Britain, allow the use of the chemical in foodstuffs in small amounts. However, the European Union has banned its use.
From an article in Scientific American: “Titanium dioxide is a naturally occurring odorless white powder used as a pigment in a large number of candies, including Skittles, as well as in a range of other products, such as cosmetics and even house paint. It’s excellent at scattering visible light, which gives whatever it’s added to a brighter, richer color. Titanium dioxide is also popular in sunscreens because of its effectiveness against skin-harming ultraviolet rays.”
The optical industry also has found numerous uses for titanium dioxide, including in the making of anti-fog lenses.
Now the question must be asked: How many Skittles does it take to unfog your glasses?
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