Blake Lively is once again facing backlash over a resurfaced clip in which she admits to doing blackface.
The actress, who is in the midst of a legal battle with her It Ends With Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni over allegations of sexual harassment on set, revealed that she painted her face with bronzer and wore a “Scary Spice fro” in an interview that has recently gained traction on social media.
The MTV interview shows her speaking with some of her co-stars from the 2006 comedy Accepted, including Justin Long, Jonah Hill, and Lewis Black.
Blake Lively is being slammed over an unearthed interview from 2006 where she admits to doing blackface
Image credits: Taylor Hill/Getty Images
The movie follows a group of high school students who create a fake university, the South Harmon Institute of Technology (S.H.I.T.), after being rejected by multiple colleges.
Lively played Monica Moreland, the high school crush of the protagonist (Long).
At one point in the interview, the Gossip Girl alum describes herself as a “geek,” which makes Long laugh.
“When hot girls say they’re geeks, it really pisses me off, ’cause I truly am a geek, and I have to live with that,” the actor says.
“Excuse me,” Lively interjects. “My friend and I, when we were in the 10th grade, had crazy crushes, and we’d drive around and stalk these guys. We decided one night to go to the arcade where they were, and I put bronzer all over myself and a Scary Spice fro, so I thought they would think I was like a Black girl so I could stalk them.”
Long responded that her behavior was “sweet and endearing” and not “geekish.”
However, almost twenty years later, the internet has other adjectives to describe her actions.
The Gossip Girl alum described painting her face and body with bronzer and wearing a “Scary Spice fro” and explained why
“‘I’m a geek.’ Oh yeah, how? ‘I once dressed up as a black girl to stalk a guy I was into,’ No babe that makes you a racist stalker,” one user wrote.
“Stalking is something already psycho – the ‘black face’ is wooooooooooooorst!!!!!!!!!! She is done! For good,” another said.
“She’s going to think this a part of the smear campaign,” commented a third.
“Dead at how she’s being such a pick me, she admitted to black face 🤣🤣 She thought she was flexing,” a separate user wrote.
“This plus her getting married on a slave plantation …. Yeah, her career is over,” someone else stated, while another added, “All these racist actions coursing through her life are really starting to add up like wtf is this.”
In 2020, the actress’ husband, Ryan Reynolds, apologized for choosing a former slave plantation as their wedding venue
“Blake is a bad person and also is potentially a victim to everything she alleged in that lawsuit. One doesn’t cancel the other, and I wish people online would realize that,” an additional user said.
Blake married Ryan Reynolds in 2012 at Boone Hall, a former slave plantation in South Carolina.
In a 2020 interview with Fast Company, the Deadpool actor apologized for the couple’s choice of wedding venue, calling it a “giant mistake.”
“It’s something we’ll always be deeply and unreservedly sorry for,” Reynolds said.
Image credits: blakelively
“It’s impossible to reconcile. What we saw at the time was a wedding venue on Pinterest. What we saw after was a place built upon devastating tragedy. Years ago, we got married again at home — but shame works in weird ways.
“A giant f**king mistake like that can either cause you to shut down or it can reframe things and move you into action. It doesn’t mean you won’t f**k up again. But re-patterning and challenging lifelong social conditioning is a job that doesn’t end.”
In the mid-19th century, there were 46,300 plantations in the United States and countless other sites of historical enslavement, including colleges and universities, municipal buildings, private homes, ships, and military installations, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
“What we saw at the time was a wedding venue on Pinterest. What we saw after was a place built upon devastating tragedy,” said the Deadpool actor
In May of 2020, Blake and Ryan released a joint statement addressing the importance of “educating themselves” about racial injustice after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin that led to global protests as part of the Black Lives Matter movement.
“We’ve never had to worry about preparing our kids for different rules of law or what might happen if we’re pulled over in the car,” the statement read.
“We don’t know what it’s like to experience that life day in and day out. We can’t imagine feeling that kind of fear and anger. We’re ashamed that in the past we’ve allowed ourselves to be uninformed about how deeply rooted systemic racism is.”
It continued: “We’ve been teaching our children differently than the way our parents taught us. We want to educate ourselves about other people’s experiences and talk to our kids about everything, all of it…especially our own complicity.”
The couple issued a lengthy statement after the murder of George Floyd, highlighting the importance of “educating themselves” about racial inequality
“We talk about our bias, blindness, and our own mistakes. We look back and see so many mistakes that have led us to deeply examine who we are and who we want to become. They’ve led us to huge avenues of education.”
The statement highlights the importance of honoring George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, and “all the black men and women who have been killed when a camera wasn’t rolling.”
The couple also announced they had donated $200,000 to the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Legal Defense Fund, a legal organization fighting for racial justice.
“We look back and see so many mistakes that have led us to deeply examine who we are and who we want to become,” Lively and Reynolds wrote
“We want to use our privilege and platform to be an ally,” the message concluded. “And to play a part in easing pain for so many who feel as though this grand experiment is failing them.”
The 37-year-old actress recently made headlines after filing a lawsuit against Justin Baldoni, accusing him of orchestrating a media smear campaign against her in retaliation for her complaints about sexual harassment on the set of It Ends With Us.
Baldoni then sued Lively and Reynolds on claims of civil extortion, defamation, and invasion of privacy.
Watch the resurfaced clip below
Image credits: Blakeand Leightoncom
In an effort to refute Lively’s claims of having been sexually harassed by Baldoni, his legal team has released footage from a scene that was mentioned in her lawsuit, arguing it shows her interacting comfortably with Baldoni.
Lively’s team quickly countered that the video supported her case, as it showed “discomfort” and “unwanted touching.”
Bored Panda has contacted Blake Lively’s representatives for comment.
“There’s no coming back from that,” said one Reddit user
