Jesy Nelson’s journey back to the top of the pops was marred by a blackfishing controversy — but Nicki Minaj rode to her rescue.
In a conversation with Nicki Minaj over Instagram Live, the former star of the girl group Little Mix denied trying to “blackfish” her audience. (Blackfishing is when, basically, a white girl pretends to be Black.) She said that she never got facial fillers, or used a tanning bed to try to appear darker than she was. Rather, the reason she looked “darker” was because she’d gone to Antigua before the video shoot, and got a tan from laying out in the sun.
Nicki Minaj even defended Nelson against some Barbs that seemed to call her out on what they felt was nonsense.
“Stop trying to hurt people and kill people’s lives and careers. This is the way people feed their families,” she said on Instagram Live. “Stop. If you want a solo career, baby girl, just say that. Only jealous people do things like this.”
This isn’t the first time that Nelson has been accused of blackfishing, but she insists that she never meant to hurt anybody.
“I personally want to say that my intention was never, ever to offend people of color with this video and my song because, like I said, growing up as a young girl, this is the music that I listened to,” Nelson said, according to The Guardian.