Ashley Graham was "very shocked" by Kendall Jenner's Pepsi advert.

Ashley Graham

Ashley Graham

The brunette beauty has admitted to being surprised Kendall, 21, and the image-conscious team that surrounds her agreed to let the model participate in the commercial, in which she calmed tensions at a protest by handing a can of the fizzy drink to a police officer.

During an appearance on 'Watch What Happens: Live', Ashley was asked by host Andy Cohen what she thought of the ad and she replied: "My team probably would have nipped it in the bud before anything happened ... It's unfortunate that that happened, but hey, she's moving forward."

Andy continued to probe Ashley about the controversial commercial, which was pulled shortly after it first aired.

He said: "When you saw it, were you surprised that nobody was like ... ?"

At which point, the 29-year-old beauty explained: "I was very shocked. I was very surprised that no one said, 'Hey, this looks like a bad idea right here'."

Ashley's remarks come shortly after the acclaimed filmmaker Spike Lee blasted Kendall, saying her appearance in the advert undermined the Black Lives Matter campaign.

Spike argued that Kendall was a completely inappropriate person to cast in the controversial commercial.

He explained: "When you deal with diversity and you don't have anybody in the room who looks like what you're trying to do, then you have a fiasco like the Pepsi spot."

The 'Do the Right Thing' star also said the commercial made light of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Spike continued: "It was horrible. The pregnant woman in Seattle got shot the other day. Philando [Castile], the whole world saw him get killed on Facebook, and the cop walked, and Pepsi did something like [that]. Don't get me started.

"That was a complete appropriation of Black Lives Matter, and Black Lives Matter is not a joke. Black people getting shot down left and right, and cops are walking and they are going to make a commercial out of that?"