Bhad Bhabie forced her way back into the headlines on Tuesday with a lengthy Instagram rant where she made mention of Tarzan and said she couldn't have been pretending to be Black because "who would want to be Black?"
The teenager and purported rapper, whose real name is Danielle Bregoli, caught heat from the internet last week for an instance of blackfishing, which describes situations in which non-Black people try to appear Black in photos, as Blavity previously reported. The term originated as "n****rfishing" by journalist Wanna. In the photos she posted to Instagram, Bregoli's skin appears significantly darker than on other occasions.
The photos generated criticism on social media from people saying she was intentionally doing obviously racist things (which, in that case, would be blackfishing) to keep herself famous.
But in a lengthy Instagram Live rant, the rapper tried to defend herself with a lot more racism, repeatedly claiming she was not Blackfishing and that she had the approval of other Black people around her.
"You think my Black best friend would let me Blackfish?" Bregoli said before turning to her Black friend and asking her what the response would be if she asked them to use makeup to give her the look of a Black woman. The Black woman, who was only identified as Ashley, agreed, saying the Black people around Bregoli wouldn't let her "Blackfish."
"Y'all trying to tell me that I'm trying to be Black while I did that photoshoot at Blac Chyna's house with a Black makeup artist," Bregoli screamed.
The 17-year-old then ranted about legendary rapper Lil' Kim and the makeup she wears, referring to the 45-year-old emcee as "the girl."
"Lil' Kim, and no disrespect to her, wears foundation that is too light for her face. The girl went and had a nose job to have a smaller nose like white people. Y'all don't see that? She got surgery to turn herself into a white person and y'all don't say a word about her," Bregoli said.
In an effort to defend herself, she said if she wanted to be Black she "would be saying the n-word. I would be doing things that Black people do. I don't act Black. I don't know what you're talking about. Who wants to be Black? I don't understand that. I can't comprehend it."
"Y'all say that I try to be Black or maybe the reason I'm trying to be Black is because I grew up in the hood. Tarzan right —the story of Tarzan," she said in an IG Live video that was reposted on Twitter.
Tarzan was a human raised by gorillas in a jungle. The remainder of the statement was not recorded.
I knowwwww she mf lying pic.twitter.com/auHdM5BopH
— C E O (@aystarr_) April 14, 2020
"I put on a foundation that makes me look tan. That I didn't even do. That Alex did. I didn't tell him what color to use on me. He used whatever color he thought would work on me. And that stuff blended fine, y’all just saw it with the light on it and got dramatic. It doesn't make any sense to me," she said during the video before sharing a photo of Italian women to emphasize they tan more dramatically.
Bregoli has long courted controversy over accusations of cultural appropriation from people on social media who follow her antics. In addition to criticism over her repeated attempts to darken her skin, people have criticized her for doing her hair in traditionally Black styles. In December she went after Black women for calling her out.
"To all the Black females that are saying my hair [ain’t] meant for box Braids guess the f**k what y’all hair [ain’t] meant to be straight. But y’all glue whole wigs on to your heads and sew brazilian/Indian/ Peruvian hair which is anything like y'all real hair texture," she said on Instagram.
"I completely agree that it would b out of line and cultural appropriation if I was trashing black girls for wearing braids them getting them but that's not the situation at all so leave me tf alone or imma start getting real disrespectful," she continued, adding that she hoped "you bald-headed hoes stay up all night thinking about this."
The comments caused widespread outrage online, which she responded to with a deeply sarcastic and grammatically flawed apology.
"I want to deeply apologize to everyone who’s life’s have seriously effected by the way I wear my hair and from the bottom of my heart I wanted to tell you suck my d**k. ( and yes apparently I guess I have really effected life’s I can’t figure out another reason why anyone would take time out of their day to write paragraphs and bully someone about hair) and btw who ever wanna come 'pull em out' like they said ya got my location I [ain't] hiding," Bregoli wrote on Instagram.
Bregoli's claim to fame is an episode of Dr. Phil titled, “I Want to Give Up My Car-Stealing, Knife-Wielding, Twerking 13-Year-Old Daughter Who Tried to Frame Me for a Crime!”
At the time, the 13-year-old went viral for telling an audience member "cash me outside," which turned her into a popular meme. She was able to parlay her social media fame into a lucrative music career.
Despite the criticism, Bregoli has since been signed to Atlantic Records and released a mixtape with features from artists like Ty Dolla $ign, Lil Yatchy and Lil Baby. Her song "Hi Bich" has nearly 200 million views on YouTube.
In an interview with The Fader in 2017, she addressed the cultural appropriation claims, saying it was "impossible to act a color" and that she was only portraying "urban" culture.
"I look at that cultural appropriation s**t and I just ignore it because it's ridiculous. You cannot act a color. Do not tell me I'm acting Black because I'm not. Whatever you want to call it, urban, I don't even have a name for it. I just call it me. How I act is me. Do what you're happy with not what you think other people think you're acting like. There is no way to act a color," she said in the interview.
"I get braids all the time. You can't tell me I'm acting Black because I braid my hair. That makes no sense. Asians started tattoos. Every race has tattoos. How come they don't tell me I'm culturally appropriating because I have tattoos," Bregoli added.
