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Jaden Smith calls out Shane Dawson for sexualising his sister Willow in ‘disgusting’ video

Actor and rapper said the YouTube star’s actions were ‘not OK’ after a resurfaced video showed Dawson acting crudely in front of a poster of Willow

Roisin O'Connor
Sunday 28 June 2020 07:18 BST
Shane Dawson apologises for past behaviour

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Jaden Smith has condemned YouTube entertainer Shane Dawson over a disturbing video involving Smith’s then 11-year-old sister, Willow.

In the resurfaced video, Dawson appears to pretend to masturbate to a Disney poster of Willow Smith, and references her hit song “Whip My Hair”.

The siblings’ mother, actor Jada Pinkett-Smith, responded late on Saturday 27 June, tweeting: “To Shane Dawson ... I’m done with the excuses.”

Actor and rapper Jaden retweeted his mother and posted a string of tweets, writing that he was “disgusted” by Dawson’s actions.

“You sexualising an 11-year-old girl who happens to be my sister... is the furthest thing from funny and not OK in the slightest bit,” he tweeted.

He added: “This man was also doing blackface on the regular,” before urging young people to “support creators who support us and our morals”.

“This is not okay,” he said, referring again to Dawson’s behaviour.

Dawson, 31, recently issued an apology over videos of himself wearing blackface.

“Blackface was something that I did a lot,” he said. ”Like, I did it a lot on my channel. There’s no excuse for it, there’s literally no excuse.”

“I made a video six years ago talking about it and I gave excuses, I knew it was wrong, I knew I never wanted to do it again, but I didn’t do the work. I didn’t actually look into the history of it and why it’s so wrong, and why people were so upset,” he continued.

“Because my ‘excuse’ [was] “I was just being funny, I love black people, I’m not a racist. I was trying to be funny.’ All of that is stupid and wrong. And I put that onto the internet as an adult, and that is insane. I’m so sorry.”

Dawson has yet to respond to the Smiths’ condemnation of the Willow video.

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