Pop star Benson Boone's cookies, part of Crumbl collab, draw a crowd
Mystical Magical (2025) was the inspiration for the cookie, thanks to the lyric 'you can feel like moonbeam ice cream, taking off your blue jeans'.
NEW YORK – If American pop star Benson Boone were a cookie, he would taste, in this reporter's opinion, unpleasant.
The flavour would be cloyingly sweet and frosted with notes of lemon, berry and an unnameable processed aftertaste that lingers on the tongue as if you have just woken up and have yet to brush your teeth. Or, at the very least, that is what a Crumbl cookie inspired by one of his songs tastes like.
Still, that has not stopped people from popping into the nearest Crumbl – of which there are more than 1,000 locations across the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada – to purchase Benson Boone's Moonbeam Ice Cream Cookie, a collaboration between the sweet treat company and the 23-year-old artiste.
Boone, a singer who quit US reality singing competition American Idol in 2021 and found mainstream fame soon after, is perhaps best known for backflipping off pianos in tight jumpsuits while performing his hit Beautiful Things (2024).
Benson Boone performing at the 2025 American Music Awards in Las Vegas on May 26.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Mystical Magical (2025), another song by Boone, was the inspiration for the cookie thanks to the lyric 'you can feel like moonbeam ice cream, taking off your blue jeans'.
The song has taken some criticism online, with some social media users suggesting the lyrics sound like something written by artificial intelligence. But it has certainly inspired plenty of memes.
As has its accompanying dessert, which Crumbl describes as 'a mystical, magical chilled chocolate cookie packed with cookies and cream pieces, crowned with vibrant moonbeam ice cream-inspired lemon, berry, and marshmallow toppings, and finished with a sweet white drizzle and a final sprinkle of cookies and cream'.
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On TikTok, the treat has played out in similar fashion to when McDonald's released its Grimace Shake in 2023.
Crumbl customers have been filming themselves walking into stores singing the song, dressed as Boone and even doing backflips. The limited-run cookie got an extension for an additional week because of its popularity.
In an e-mail, Mr Jason McGowan, chief executive of Crumbl, wrote: 'Fans called for a moonbeam encore and we're here for it – with backflips.'
In early July in New York City, the line at the Crumbl location in Manhattan's Chelsea neighbourhood snaked out the store and around the corner.
A sandwich board advertising Boone's confection stood guard at the door. When asked if they had come specifically for that cookie, well over a dozen patrons, most of them European tourists, made their lack of familiarity with Boone fairly evident.
Outside a Crumbl store in the Chelsea neighbourhood of Manhattan, a location of the chain popular with tourists, on July 2.
PHOTO: HIROKO MASUIKE/NYTIMES
Instead, most noted that they had come to try Crumbl after seeing the brand on TikTok.
Ms Alaina Kirby and Ms Lisa Sim, cabin crew members for Norse Atlantic Airways, stood outside the shop juggling suitcases and pink Crumbl bags on their arms while waiting for an Uber to take them to the airport for a flight home to England. Their kids, they said, asked them to bring home some cookies, including Boone's.
Customers at three Crumbl locations in Manhattan, who purchased Boone's confection, seemed to be doing so for somebody else.
Ms Tammy Lares, 34, a doula who lives in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, was buying one at the request of her 15-year-old stepdaughter. Ms Terri Darkwah, 25, a nurse manager who lives in Brooklyn, similarly stopped by to get some treats – including the Moonbeam Ice Cream – for her sister-in-law.
MaryClaire Childre, 14, said it tasted 'like an elevated sugar cookie'. She and Julia Vargas, her fellow ninth grader in Manhattan, bought one cookie, which contains 920 calories and sells for just over US$5 (S$6.40) after tax, to share.
Julia Vargas (left) and MaryClair Childre with a Moonbeam Ice Cream Cookie outside a Crumbl store on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on July 2.
PHOTO: HIROKO MASUIKE/NYTIMES
Inside the Upper West Side store, the air smelled distinctly of sugar.
Ms Cece Hatcher, a Crumbl employee at that location, said the Moonbeam cookie had been popular with teenagers. 'People have been coming in and asking if they'll get a free cookie if they do a backflip,' she said. The answer, she stressed, is no. NYTIMES
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