Jesy Nelson has publicly addressed accusations of “blackfishing” over her latest music video with US rapper Nicki Minaj – who has hit out at the star’s former Little Mix bandmate Leigh-Anne Pinnock about the issue.
Nelson and Minaj spoke about the criticism in an Instagram Live video stream to promote new single Boyz on Monday evening, and Minaj later tweeted about it.
The former Little Mix star, 30, has faced social media accusations of blackfishing – the practice of a non-black person trying to appear black – following the release of the video for the song.
Don’t call things out when they benefit your personal vendetta to ppl. Call them out immediately once you see it chile. Don’t wait a decade after you’ve made millions with the person 🤣 #BoyzOutNowhttps://t.co/SeXUPFxMyp
During the Instagram Live, she said she never intended to cause offence and wanted to celebrate the music she loves and has grown up with.
“I personally want to say that my intention was never, ever to offend people of colour 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.
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“These are the videos that I watched and thought were the best. For me personally, ’90s/2000 hip-hop, R&B music, was the best era of music.
“I just wanted to celebrate that. I just wanted to celebrate that era of music because it is what I love.”
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She added: “My intention was never, ever, ever to offend anyone and genuinely it actually does really hurt me that I may have offended people and actually, like, hurt people’s feelings just by genuinely celebrating something that I love.”
In the live stream with Minaj, who features on Boyz, Nelson said she had been to Antigua in the weeks before the video shoot, which explained her darker skin tone in the video. She also said her hair is naturally curly and had that she had enhanced the look, but not changed it, for the video.
“I genuinely didn’t think I was doing anything wrong, because I’ve got naturally curly hair,” she said.
Image: Nelson (left) pictured with her former Little Mix bandmates Perrie Edwards, Jade Thirlwall and Leigh-Anne Pinnock at the Brit Awards in 2019. Pic: AP
The live stream took place after reports that Nelson’s former bandmate Leigh-Anne Pinnock had warned her about blackfishing.
Addressing the alleged comments from Pinnock, Nelson said: “It’s just hard for me because I was in a group with two women of colour for nine years and it was never brought up to me up until the last music video I did with them.”
Minaj defended Nelson and appeared to aim several barbs at the members of Little Mix in the stream.
Afterwards, the US rapper posted on Twitter: “Don’t call things out when they benefit your personal vendetta to ppl. Call them out immediately once you see it chile. Don’t wait a decade after you’ve made millions with the person.”
In another tweet, Minaj also referenced Nelson’s issues with mental health and said: “You don’t know what ppl can deal with.”
Nelson announced her departure from Little Mix in December 2020 after nine years in the hugely successful girl group, who have sold more than 50 million records worldwide.
She blamed the toll that being in the band and being compared with the other girls had taken on her mental health.
Earlier in 2021, Pinnock released the Race, Pop & Power documentary exploring racism in the music industry and her own experiences as the only black member of Little Mix.
Nelson recently confirmed she no longer speaks to her ex-bandmates Pinnock, Jade Thirlwall and Perrie Edwards.
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Image: Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
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Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Image: Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Image: Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Image: Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
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Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.