Walmart removes ‘unbelievable’ T-shirt from store after shopper finds ‘hidden word’

A Walmart customer recently went viral after they noticed an accidental typo on a T-shirt that spelled out an insult in its design.

Twitter user @whosurdaddienow shared a picture of the T-shirt to Twitter on 3 April, where it gained 19,000 likes and more than 2,000 retweets.

“I need this shirt before Walmart realizes what they have done,” she captioned the tweet. “Find the hidden word.”

In the image, the green graphic tee appeared to promote recycling with “RE” printed in large letters. The other side of the shirt featured four endings to the “RE” prefix, including “cycle”, “use”, “new”, and “think”. However, social media users quickly noticed how the T-shirt accidentally spelled out an insult when read acrostically from top to bottom.

Although the T-shirt included an offensive insult, social media users were surprisingly pleased with the accidental typo, and rushed to the comments to find where they can purchase the shirt for themselves.

“Haha, my wife found em at our local Walmart,” said one Twitter user, who shared a screenshot of their excited reaction after their wife found the T-shirt in stores.

“NEED IT,” wrote another Twitter user, while one person said: “Unbelievable”

“But you can only wear this shirt on Tuesday,” said someone else.

Others revealed that it took them some time before finding the hidden word printed on the T-shirt.

“Took me a moment…” said one person.

“‘I don’t...what is wrong with...what am I looking fo- OH,’” another joked.

Some people also wondered whether Walmart had included the typo accidentally, or if it was intentional.

“Wow, as someone that prints clothing for a living, I’m amazed this made it to the shop floor,” said one person. “They had to know surely?!”

“I wonder if this was intentional and Walmart is showing its colours,” tweeted someone else.

“Someone is getting fired,” another person said.

In a statement to The Independent, a Walmart spokesperson said the “hidden word” was unintentional and has been removed from its stores: "The T-shirt has been removed, and for context, this item was only available in Canada.”

The green T-shirt was on sale for $5 in Walmart’s Canada stores as part of the George brand owned by the major retailer. The brand is also stocked in ASDA supermarket stores across the UK. As of Thursday 13 April, the shirt has been removed for sale from Walmart’s website. However, it is still available to purchase on Amazon and Etsy.

It’s not always easy to spot an unfortunate message hidden in a graphic tee. Last year, a mother went viral on TikTok when she accidentally sent her daughter to her school’s picture day wearing a sassy shirt.

“If you ever thought you were a bad mom,” she captioned the video, “At least you didn’t forget picture day, and send your toddler to school in this.”

The TikTok then cut to her daughter wearing a shirt that read, “Sasshole”. However, the text on her shirt was cut off in the photographs, and sent a very different message when the “S” was cut off.