The Racist Pasts of Your Favourite Celebrities

Eiman Rizwan
Dec 26, 2019
4 min read

If you have seen the news this week, you would have seen Camila Cabello’s racist tumblr posts resurfacing on the internet. This got me thinking about the other non-black celebrities using racial slurs and saying other racist things, and hardly apologizing for it. It’s almost like this has become normalized, every other month there is someone new getting exposed. The worst part is, some celebrities get away with it because they have such a large fan base, who are willing to cover up their dirty laundry. This week, we’re going to examine the racist pasts of a few celebrities, and see their response after being exposed. I will also be providing evidence, in the form of screenshots or videos. (Click pictures for the links to videos)

Camila Cabello

Camila Cabello is at the peak of her career, with multiple songs on the top 10 charts, and her famous significant other, Shawn Mendes, who is also on this list. This week her old tumblr account was exposed. Where she not only said the n-word and other racist things towards black people, but also towards asian and latino people. When I first saw these posts I thought that it could have been fake because of the username, “Vous-Estess-Belle”, but when she posted her fake apology to her instagram story, it was confirmed that she did in fact say those things. To make this situation even worse, she called her former Fifth Harmony band mate, Normani, the n-word in a text screenshot. I honestly don’t believe her apology because it’s not genuine and it follows the basic, celebrity apology format. She blames her ignorance on her age, saying she was young when she said those things and now she has changed as a person. How is she “apologizing from the bottom of her heart”, through an instagram story? If she really meant it, she should make a video which would have been more sincere. She also doesn't take the blame. This just makes it look like she is trying to gain sympathy from her 12 year old fans.

Tana Mongeau

Despite everything Tana gets hate for, this situation really hit. Many videos of Tana Mongeau were leaked, of her using the n-word in a really harmful way. After this, iDubbbz went to her meet and greet and exposed her for saying these racial slurs, which she then ran away from him. She even posted a snapchat video of herself where she tries to provide an explanation for her using the racial slur. She goes on to explain that she was 13 when she said these things, and she didn’t know the n-word was racist. I find this very hard to believe because you learn about history in school! Obviously you know that word was used in an offensive way during the time of slavery. She continues her “justification” by saying she thought the word meant “homie” because many rappers use it in their songs. Many rappers who are BLACK use it, because they are ALLOWED to. A white teenage girl is not allowed to say it, especially when she knows not to. She does admit to being ignorant and uninformed, but I don’t buy it. In her old tweets you can clearly see that she knew that what she was saying was racist. She uploaded a video to YouTube trying to victimize herself against iDubbbz and it backfired. But of course, even after hardly apologizing and playing the victim, she is still thriving in her career. I think if she actually took ownership of what she did instead of lying about not knowing what it meant, she could potentially be forgiven by more people.

Shane Dawson

The king of “uncancelling cancelled people”, Shane Dawson, should probably work on switching the narrative of himself, after old videos on his youtube channel were exposed. He was caught doing black face in a number of videos, and acting out stereotypes of different races. Considering that he hardly apologized for his actions, and still has over 22 million subscribers, it's easy to see the power of his fans to protect his social blade at all costs. The craziest part is, in his 11 minute long apology video, he pushes this idea of "everyone knows I'm not racist, I just messed up". He basically doesn't take ownership of his actions and says he did the blackface to stay "true to the character". WHAT? AM I MISSING SOMETHING? He's literally BLACK-MAILING his fans for sympathy and victimizing himself to try and get out of the situation. He tries to normalize black-facing, and make it seem like he didn't do anything wrong, and if you found this offensive, then he's sorry, I guess?

Shawn Mendes

Every girl's current favourite man right now is Shawn Mendes. Personally he's not my favourite, I find his music to be very mediocre, and his style is very bland. But my opinion on him doesn't matter, what does matter is his ignorant and racist tweets made about black girls. You're surprised? I bet a lot of you didn't know that he has made racist tweets in the past. Probably because of his fans using their stan power to cover it up, or the fact that he wrote a couple sentences on his Instagram story to try and get himself out of the situation. In one tweet, he said the light skin girls were better, assuming he means better than dark skinned girls. Obviously this is a super ignorant thing to say. He also retweeted his friend and said the "black was coming out of her" because she was getting angry. But to make this all even worse, he used the n-word in an instagram caption. He also tweeted typical stereotypes of black people, which is the opposite of what you should do. Promoting racial stereotypes is the leading cause of racism! I guess his girlfriend Camila used his bland and insincere apology format to justify the same thing! Wow, what a power couple. Sike, they are both just trying to cover up what they did for the sake of their careers, and they are only sorry that they were exposed. Oh, and did I mention, he used the same "I was young and ignorant" lame excuse. Like girlfriend, like boyfriend.