The first time Sean Hunter presented someone with a Peloton stationary bike, it didn’t exactly go as planned.
But now the Canadian actor, who gained fame for his part in the holiday season’s most ridiculed ad, hopes the second time’s the charm.
Yes, the “Peloton husband” just gave his real-life partner a Peloton.
“Here’s hoping this goes over better the second time....” Hunter wrote in a post he shared on Instagram. “Merry Christmas to my actual girlfriend (pls don’t leave me).”
That message — including the desperate parenthetical plea — accompanied a photo of Hunter standing alongside his girlfriend, Cassidy Baras, and a workout bike with a big bow on it.
The good news? She’s smiling, and unlike his on-screen other half, there’s no sign of “worried” eyebrows.
It seems Hunter, whose Instagram handle is now “pelotonhusband,” has decided to lean into the viral commercial that stirred up controversy, comedy and even left him concerned about his career.
Though he was only featured in the ad for a few seconds, Hunter’s character became a running joke on social media where he was mocked for appearing clueless, at best, for giving his fit wife an exercise bike that she didn’t ask for, or at worst, abusive, for what some saw as fear in her eyes as she filmed her workouts for him over the course of a year.
"My 5 seconds of air time created an array of malicious feedback that is all associated with my face,” Hunter explained in an interview with Psychology Today shortly after the ad went viral. “My friend texted me today declaring that I’m 'a symbol of the patriarchy.’”
But his co-star, Monica Ruiz, aka “Peloton wife,” took the blame for that unintended response when she visited TODAY earlier this month.
"My eyebrows looked worried I guess,” she explained. “People were like, 'You look scared.' I'm telling you, it was my face, that was the problem, and it just exploded from there.”
But just as Hunter appears to have now come to terms with his viral fame, so has Ruiz. In fact, her brows have really bolstered her career.
Shortly after the original Peloton ad took off on social media, actor Ryan Reynolds hired her to reprise her role in a commercial for Aviation Gin, which he partially owns. And just last week it was revealed that she’s landed a guest spot on the CBS soap “The Bold and the Beautiful.”