Celebs Accused Of Blackfishing

Blackfishing is a term that is used to define when a person modifies their appearance by using tanning methods or some makeup. They even appropriate the cultural clothes or hairstyles and at times even have fillers or cosmetic surgeries. All this is done to present themselves as racially ambiguous or black.

Blackfishing is quite hurtful to black people and black women especially. These celebs undergo treatments to manipulate the features on the body just to be in likeness to blackness is offensive.

Here are some celebs who have been accused of blackfishing

1. Kylie Jenner

She is no stranger when it comes to blackfishing. Kylie’s name has always appeared in one scandal or the other so much that it has been a common thing for her career. In an interview with Marie Claire, she had literally said, “I started wigs, and now everyone is wearing wigs.”

Like seriously, Kylie? She even denied she had gotten a lip augmentation, for more than a year. Kylie has even been accused of having surgery to create her racially ambiguous image. And she has built and has even profited off of these aesthetics of black women.

2. Kim Kardashian (Surprise, Surprise!)

Maybe Kylie learned this from her sister. The Kardashian – Jenners have accidentally become the face of blackfishing over the years. Kim has also been called out for darkening her skin and even appropriating black hairstyles.

She has used all this to make money and this is a problem.

3. Rita Ora

When fans came to know about Ora’s Albanian parentage back in 2020, they called her out for choosing hairstyles that make everyone think she was biracial or Black. Both her parents are white, moved to London when Ora was 1 year old.

4.  Ariana Grande

She started her career on Nickelodeon and went on to make hit solo albums. And it is no surprise that people have noticed her skin get darker over time. She has been accused of adopting multiple cultural traits as convenient. She is seen brunette and bronzed in her music videos while she appears blonde and white on several magazine covers.

And of course, her appropriating Black culture in her “7 Rings” video hasn’t been spared by people either.

5. Bhad Bhabie

Danielle Bregoli aka Bhad Bhabie was also called out for blackfishing as well. She comes from a white background and is seen darkening her skin and adopting black hairstyles. Bhad has been accused of using this to build her career in hip hop and she doesn’t even hide it.

In Instagram live, she made a racist statement while defending herself. Here’s what she said, “Y’all say that I try to be black because I—may be a reason for me trying to be black is that I grew up in the hood. Tarzan, right, he—the story of Tarzan.”

She compared Tarzan behaving like a gorilla since he was raised by them to her “acting black” because she was raised “in the hood”. And to make it even worse, she backtracked by saying, “Who wants to be black? I don’t understand that. I can’t comprehend it.”