Texas couple, zoo criticized for feeding hippo blue watermelon for gender reveal

CEDAR CREEK, Texas — What was an exciting celebration for one Texas couple became the subject of criticism on Twitter.

The New York Post reported Jonathan Joseph and Bridgette Joseph were at Capital of Texas Zoo in Cedar Creek, Texas, where they enlisted the help of Tank the hippo for their gender reveal.

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Video was posted to the zoo's Facebook page, but not before going viral on Twitter, where Ana Breton, a filmmaker, posted a screen recording of a TikTok post of the gender reveal.

"I did it. I found the worst gender reveal," she tweeted Saturday.

Time reported that the video showed Tank chomping on a watermelon, which revealed a blue color, meaning the couple is expecting a boy.

Criticisms soon followed.

"The whole reveal concept is just completely stupid to begin with, but I guess you can make it even dumber," one person tweeted.

"That person's baby is not remotely important enough to feed a hippo 10 pounds of food coloring," another person replied.

On Sunday, Breton said she got in contact with Bridgette Joseph, although it's not clear if Bridgette Joseph reached out to Breton to respond or not.

"While I’m not a fan of gender reveals, it was not my intention to bring darkness to their special day," Breton tweeted, which included a response from Bridgette Joseph.

"This was one of the happiest days of our lives," Bridgette Joseph said, according to Breton's tweet. "With the help of the zoo and the amazing Tank the hippo, we learned that we are having a baby boy. After many years of raising our beautiful young lady, we decided to try for another baby. It took some time and some extra money in fertility treatments, but we finally got pregnant!"

Bridgette Joseph said she and her husband would have been happy to have another girl, but for them, it would have meant they "would have had to keep tying for a boy."

Michael Hicks, the director of the zoo, told The Post the Jello-O was not harmful to Tank, despite what some said on social media.

"This is the same Jell-O people feed their kids. It's totally harmless," zoo director Michael Hicks told the tabloid.

Hicks said the hippo wasn't forced into the gender reveal.

"You can't make a hippo do anything. He weighs 4,000 pounds," Hicks said. "He enjoyed it as much as anybody else did."

Cox Media Group