In an Instagram update posted yesterday, Tory Lanez alleges that the director of his most recent music video replaced a darker skinned woman on camera with a lighter skinned woman. In a video Lanez posted on his personal Instagram, a darker skinned woman is dancing on camera before she is seemingly directed to step out of shot. A lighter skinned woman then steps into frame. Immediately Tory Lanez gestures for a timeout. The caption under the video Lanez posted reads, “it’s BEEN time to embrace our woman of color #BlackIsBeautiful.” A screenshot of the post is below.
Critics speculate that the video is staged for publicity, and that the event in question did not occur. According to Complex, DJ Akademiks refuted Lanez’s claim and insisted the other women who shot the video did as well. The model in the video allegedly discriminated against is Sultry Shen. Shen posted on her Instastory yesterday calling Lanez’s recounting of events ‘#fakenews’. A screenshot of the post is below.
If lying, Lanez joins Jussie Smollet whose attempt at bringing about awareness to a cause boiled down to lying and fabricating a story. The sad part is these are real issues. LGBT+ people are dying nationwide due to hate crimes as Smollet tried to highlight with his lying. Colorism continues to plague many industries, not just music, as Lanez tried to shed light on in poor taste. These are real issues that celebrities are making a mockery of when they try to create situations for a story instead of conducting research and presenting very real stories that happen to women and LGBT+ people daily. Colorism is real. Homophobia and homophobic hate crimes are real. These issues are big enough ills without having to lie about them.
The Juncture Magazine 