Two body-painted women caused a kerfuffle last weekend in Salt Lake City when the duo attended the University of Utah’s football 73-7 win over Southern Utah.
Utah spokesperson Christopher Nelson told Brian Mullahy of local CBS affiliate KUTV that the two half-naked women, who wore body paint over their chests instead of baring outright skin, put on their shirts when asked by two female police officers.
As per Mullahy’s piece, Nelson also spoke with Keith Squires, Utah’s Chief Safety officer, who said detectives will “follow up this week to screen for any personal charges.” University police confirmed that it’s an active investigation.
The potential trouble for these women doesn’t stop with police, either. Nelson said the women will also be “referred to the Dean of Students for possible (non-criminal) sanctions.”
Earlier this month, Utah’s president and athletic director wrote a letter to football ticket holders saying “unsafe or inappropriate conduct could lead to losing “all privileges and access for future University of Utah events.”
Much of the anger online about the incident seems to come from a single woman on TikTok, as highlighted by Spencer Hall of Channel 6 News and The Shutdown Fullcast:
we talked about this at the end of today's @ShutdownFullcas but the mean lady instagram person honking out over seeing two ladies in body paint at a Utes game is killing me pic.twitter.com/DVWsvGpX45
— BUM CHILLUPS AKA SPENCER HALL (@edsbs) September 14, 2022
That tweet got quite the response itself. Some of that:
ITS A CLASS B FELONY https://t.co/ccQE8Eq1VJ
— Jane Coaston (@janecoaston) September 14, 2022
the vaunted the school district is hiring a person of color face
— lukezim (@lukezim) September 14, 2022
That’s the face of a person who would have asked to speak to the manager at Club La Vela back in the day and been genuinely furious at the response.
— National Champions HBTMFD (@dawgsports) September 14, 2022
— ANTIFAldo (@ANTIFAldo) September 14, 2022
these are the kind of people that get legitimately upset with their 3 year old for not understanding the rules of candyland
— Powerful Pun Lobby (@djexile27) September 14, 2022
And Hall added a notable follow-up himself:
bet this lady has many threats to decency and the American way of life to tell me about
— BUM CHILLUPS AKA SPENCER HALL (@edsbs) September 14, 2022
We’ll see if anything more comes of this.
[KUTV; photo of a Pac-12 logo before the 2021 Utah-Oregon conference championship game from Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports]