Source: Adriana M. Barraza/WENN.com / WENN
As previously reported, Gina Rodriguez got a bit too comfortable on social media on Tuesday. The 35-year-old actress was seated in the makeup chair getting glammed up, and while that was happening, she recorded herself singing along to The Fugees’ “Ready or Not.” Perhaps her intention when she started the recording was to remind people that “the Black community is my community” and that she’s down with the culture. But she messed up when she decided, out of all the words to sing along to, to tape herself singing the part where Lauryn Hill says, “ni–as give me heebie-jeebies.” The backlash was swift. She apologized in a video on her InstaStories, sorry not for her use of the n-word but because she sang along to a song “I love and grew up on.” That apology obviously didn’t appease anyone, and after some time and continued heat, Gina came back with a much longer, more detailed apology, specifically for the use of “the word I sang.” The written apology is on her Instagram page
“In song or in real life, the words that I spoke, should not have been spoken,” she wrote. “I grew up loving the Fugees and Lauryn Hill. I thoughtlessly sang along to the lyrics of a favorite song, and even worse, I posted it. The word I sang, carries with it a legacy of hurt and pain that I cannot even imagine. Whatever consequences I face for my actions today, none will be more hurtful than the personal remorse I feel.”
“Watching my own video playing back at me, has shaken me to my core. It is humiliating that this has to be a public lesson but it is indeed a much deserved lesson,” she added. “I feel so deeply protective and responsible to this community of color but I have let this community down. I have some serious learning and growing to do and I am so deeply sorry for the the pain I have caused.”
Much better.
Still, with Gina’s track record, specifically her public issue with their being a Black superhero movie when there still hasn’t been a Latino-centered one following Black Panther’s release, as well as her attempt to correct a journalist who told her Smallfoot co-star Yara Shahidi that she was a role model for so many Black women, which Gina changed to just “so many women,” it’s too little too late to many. Most of Black Twitter had already canceled the Jane the Virgin star, and for those who didn’t, it was agreed upon by “the collective” that she was getting the boot after yesterday’s video and initial apology.
Hit the flip to see the reactions to her misstep from Black Twitter:
https://twitter.com/yoongimetal/status/1184189837923909632
