Jesy Nelson and the Controversy She Has Found Herself In

Nicky Minaj and Jesy Nelson on their live stream talking about the controversy.

Over the past few hours, Twitter and other social media sites have been talking about ex-Little Mix member, Jesy Nelson, and her supposed blackfishing. This all came to fruition when she released her new song “Boyz” with Nicky Minaj where fans had an issue with how she was presenting herself and felt she has been using black culture to sell her music. Many fans in the past have assumed that Jesy Nelson is a person of colour and has been tied to the black community. However, that is not the case and Nelson is in fact completely white. The confusion with Nelson’s race and assumption she has ties to the black community comes down to how dark she tans her skin, making her lips bigger with filler and wearing clothes and hairstyles that we would often associate with the black community.

However, the hot water that Jesy Nelson was in before has got even hot after her live stream last night with Nicky Minaj where they talked of this controversy and rather than taking responsibility Jesy and Nicky blamed other people, gave excuses, and publicly bullied Leigh-Anne Pinnock who was one of Jesy’s bandmates. Ultimately making the controversy worse and avoid doing the one thing that might make this situation better.

The two women argued on the live stream that many people tan and that many people have lip fillers, which is true. However, many do not make themselves as dark as Jesy does where she was often the same colour as her black bandmate, Leigh-Anne Pinnock. Perrie Edwards was the only other bandmate other than Jesy that is white, she also tans, but not once has it been put into question as to what her race is and if she is taking from black culture. When it comes to the lips, lip fillers are so common now that it would be a surprise to turn on Love Island or TOWIE and not see girls with clearly injected lips. However, the issue lies with the fact that in the process of doing this and making herself darker, she has made herself seem a race she is not and has not once tried to correct it or make it clear that she is a white woman.

It is this clear lack of responsibility that I believe is making so many people angry. That she has not once apologised or tried to understand the outrage but rather has given excuses like she tans easily or that her two bandmates that are people of colour (Leigh-Anne Pinnock who is black and Jade Thirlwall whose grandparents are Yemini and Egyptian) should have talked to her about it sooner. If this clear denial wasn’t enough Nicky and Jesy both publicly bully Leigh-Anne and laughed at her in the process, though this is disgusting, fans also took a larger issue with this as Jesy has talked openly about online bullying for her weight and what damage that did to her mental health.

This is not an ‘I hate Jesy train’ but it is a way to shine a light on the need to take responsibility for whatever mistakes one has made. It’s a shame that Jesy hasn’t just held her head up and apologise for hurting or upsetting anyone, maybe if she had then there wouldn’t be such coverage on the matter, and she would be forgiven rather than being one of the biggest topics on social media platforms right now.