UPDATE: Johnson has revealed that she and Cotter will perform their dance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday night.
Previously reported:
TikTok star Mya Johnson has given her opinion on the backlash against Jimmy Fallon for inviting Addison Rae to the show to perform a series of dances created by primarily Black TikTokers.
Johnson’s dance, choreographed to Cardi B’s “Up” with her friend Chris Cotter, was one of the dances performed by Rae on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. After the sketch, viewers sounded off on how the performance whitewashed the dances created by Black social media stars. Even worse was that the show did not give credit to those original creators.
Johnson told TMZ how she felt about her dance making it to primetime without her, saying, “I was shocked and was really happy ’cause…my challenge made it all the way TV, which is…crazy. But then as I started to think, I was like, ‘Dang. I wish that could have been me and Chris performing our own challenge at his show.'”
This isn’t the first time Rae has courted controversy by performing dances created by Black Tik TikTokers. As Shadow And Act reported earlier, Rae and Charli D’Amelio performed the “Renegade” dance created by Jalaiah Harmon at NBA All-Star Weekend. Johnson’s comments give even more weight to the criticisms from Black TikTokers and fans alike; even though she told TMZ she doesn’t have anything against Rae, she also told PopSugar that she felt she and her friend should have been invited, according to Complex.
“My mom always tells me, ‘When it’s my time, it’s my time.’ I felt like that should’ve been my time and Chris’ time, because we created the dance,” she told PopSugar, adding that this isn’t the first time Black creators have been overlooked in the mainstream.
“…I don’t want it to continue,” she said. “I feel like it is very important for us to get our credit because we are very good creators that are very overlooked in what we do.”
