Katy Perry tried to make a little joke about her hair and things didn’t turn out so good for her. Well, she compared dying her black hair blonde to the replacement of Barack Obama for Donald Trump, what was she expecting?
During an Instagram Live session on Saturday, April 29, the singer was answering some questions from her fans, until one comment popped up: “I miss your old black hair,” she read aloud, and then replied, “Oh, really? Do you miss Barack Obama as well? Oh, OK. Times change. Bye! See you guys later.”
She then turned around to her friends, laughing, looking for approval. “I should leave now,” she said, and a voice off-camera could be heard replying “Ok, you’re cut off.” The live stream was over, and the damage was done.
People took Twitter to criticize the bad joke
It was a matter of minutes before viewers turned to Twitter to talk about the singer’s comment, many calling it “racially insensitive,” and even “a poor, tasteless attempt at humor.”
Someone even brought out the fact that Obama has won more Grammys than Perry – Obama has two Grammys for his audiobooks ‘Dreams From My Father’ and ‘The Audacity of Hope’, while Perry has, well, none.
It’s not the first time Perry has been accused of insensitive or racist
Perry has been very open about her political views, standing against President Trump and being a vocal advocate for candidate Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election. She even has referred to herself about being “woke AF” for supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. But she has not been very congruent about what she says and what she does.
Back in 2013, producer Mano shared through some tweets that Perry had referred to him and his friends at a Paris club as “n***as” ironically. He insisted in 2015, writing “@katyPerry is comfortable with calling me her #n***a. Oddly I wasn’t.” No one believed him, though.
He showed up once again on Sunday after Perry’s Obama joke video went viral. He posted a picture of them together, adding “While she was juke’n my cuz she started calling us her ‘n***as’ and we asked 2 stop a few times … she couldn’t understand why and we had 2 explain 2 her that it wasn’t endearing (sic) and it was really offensive.”
In 2015, Amandla Stenberg accused Perry of appropriating black culture in the video for “This Is How We Do,” recalling that time at the American Music Awards in 2013 with a Japanese-themed performance of “Unconditionally.”
Earlier this year in February, she made a joke about Britney Spears and her mental health. During a red carpet interview at the Grammys, someone asked Perry about the break she is taking from music. “It’s called taking care of your mental health,” she replied, adding “I haven’t shaved my head yet.” Too bad, Katy, too bad.