Rihanna denounces Snapchat ad asking: would you rather hit her or Chris Brown?

Rihanna has slammed Snapchat for making a “joke” of domestic violence after the company posted an ad asking users whether they would rather “slap Rihanna” or “punch Chris Brown”.

“I’d love to call it ignorance, but I know you ain’t that dumb! You spent money to animate something that would intentionally bring shame to DV victims and made a joke of it!!!” the singer posted on her Instagram on Thursday after screenshots of the ad had circulated on social media.

Snap said it pulled the ad, which featured photos of Rihanna and Brown and was promoting a mobile video game called “Would you rather”. The company initially issued a short apology that said the ad violated its “guidelines”, adding: “We are sorry that this happened.”

Rihanna did not accept the apology. Her statement on Thursday said: “This isn’t about my personal feelings, cause I don’t have much of them…but all the women, children and men that have been victims of DV in the past and especially the ones who haven’t made it out yet…you let us down! Shame on you. Throw the whole app-oligy away.”

After Rihanna’s statement, a Snap spokesperson said in an email: “This advertisement is disgusting and never should have appeared on our service. We are so sorry we made the terrible mistake of allowing it through our review process. We are investigating how that happened so that we can make sure it never happens again.”

The company also said the game behind the ad was unaffiliated with Snap and had been blocked from its platform.

Brown was arrested and sentenced to community service after he attacked Rihanna, his girlfriend at the time, in 2009.

Rihanna has previously spoken about being a domestic violence victim, saying in one interview in 2015 that she resented having to continually discuss it: “It’s not a subject to sweep under the rug, so I can’t just dismiss it like it wasn’t anything, or I don’t take it seriously. But, for me, and anyone who’s been a victim of domestic abuse, nobody wants to even remember it … So to talk about it and say it once, much less 200 times, is like … I have to be punished for it?”

The singer slammed the company in her statement, saying: “Now Snapchat I know you already know you ain’t my fav app out there! But I’m just trying to figure out what the point was with this mess!”

The ad sparked a backlash on social media, including from Chelsea Clinton, who tweeted: “Awful that any company would approve this.”

The scandal comes at a particularly difficult time for Snap, which has faced anger over a controversial redesign – and experienced a $1.3bn drop in market valueafter the celebrity Kylie Jenner tweeted that she was no longer using the app.