Hell t-shirt

In April 2018, the Wallabies rugby league player Israel Folau condemned gay people to 'hell' in a controversial social media post. In response, pizza chain HELL created a special t-shirt to raise money for Rainbow Youth – an organisation which supports young members of LGBTQI+ communities. T-shirts featured the tagline 'The Only HELL I'm Going To'. The campaign aimed to encourage diversity and equality, and to send out a positive message to young people that they are unique and wonderful.

Trans advocate Bella Simpson was on the board of Rainbow Youth at the time and was happy for her portrait to be part of the accompanying campaign because it was 'rooted in empowerment'. She recalls Hell Pizza's commitment: ‘it was something they believed in and their staff believed in' - and their support is ongoing - 'the staff were excited about wearing the t-shirts beyond the campaign' (Simpson 2020).

The campaign sold 3000 t-shirts and raised $75,000, which was Rainbow Youth’s largest business donation at that time, enabling them to focus on regional work outside of Auckland.

Folau was sacked from his Rugby Australia contract in 2019 after continuing to express homophobic views on social media.