Kim Kardashian accused of wearing blackface on new magazine cover
'So disrespectful, again'
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Kim Kardashian is facing accusations of cultural appropriation and blackface after appearing on a magazine cover with darker skin.
On Thursday, the KKW Beauty mogul shared photos from a shoot with 7Hollywood magazine for its cover, in which she’s dressed in a strapless black gown by Thierry Mugler.
“What a dream,” the 39-year-old captioned the photos.
However, on social media, many people took offence with the darkened colour of Kardashian’s skin, and accused the star of being problematic and “racially insensitive”.
“Kim Kardashian often appropriates black female culture to get attention,” one person wrote. “It says a lot that she continuously pulls these antics to get attention, knowing she’ll upset black women - the same black women that have supported her business. She’s a culture vulture in blackface.”
Another said: “I didn’t recognise Kim Kardashian, and I guess that was the point. Negative or positive press is still press. But truly, this is really gross that she’s normalising blackface for young kids to follow suit. Kim pretends to be a role model and then she reminds us that she isn’t.”
“Kim Kardashian and Beyoncé both wearing dresses designed by a white French man is not cultural appropriation,” someone else tweeted. “Kim being in blackface isn’t cultural appropriation either - the word you’re looking for is racism.”
Others questioned whether the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star purposely darkened her skin because she knows that “outrage sells”.
“They’re able to keep their name relevant by doing things like THIS,” one woman wrote.
This is not the first time the mother-of-four has been accused of cultural appropriation. Most recently, Kardashian faced backlash after announcing she’d named her new shapewear line Kimono, the name of a traditional Japanese garment, before later changing it to Skims.
In June 2017, the reality star also faced blackface allegations after releasing ads for her KKW Beauty contour and highlight kits.
In the promotion photos, Kardashian had noticeably darker skin, which she claimed at the time was due to a tan.
"We wanted them really moody; it was really tan," Kardashian said. "I wanted to show the contour. The photos ended up being a little bit darker than I was. There were some people online saying I was doing blackface and the photos were inappropriate.”
"I think have to address it because if I don’t it'll turn in one of those situations where people will think I’m trying to ignore something serious,” she continued, adding: “I fully understood what people were saying...I would never ever, ever do a photo shoot like that and I would never disrespect anyone.”
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