Italian American Gwen Stefani repeatedly insists she’s ‘Japanese’
This s–t is bananas, b-a-n-a-n-a-s.
Gwen Stefani, who was born to an Italian American father and Irish American mother in California, claimed in a bizarre new interview that she is Japanese — despite having absolutely zero ethnic ties to the country.
The No Doubt lead singer explained to Allure magazine Tuesday how she visited the district of Harajuku herself before releasing her now-controversial Harajuku Lovers collection in 2004 and realized she’s apparently Asian.
“I said, ‘My God, I’m Japanese and I didn’t know it,'” she told the interviewer, who is actually Asian.
“I am, you know,” she doubled down.
Elsewhere in the wildly problematic conversation, Stefani claimed that not only does she identify as part Asian, but she is “a little bit of an Orange County girl, a little bit of a Japanese girl, a little bit of an English girl.”
A rep for the “Don’t Speak” singer reached out to the interviewer, Jesa Marie Calaor, the next day and — seemingly in an attempt to gaslight the author — explained that the journalist had “misunderstood” what Stefani was trying to convey.
Allure said it responded with a request for an on-the-record clarification, which the “Voice” coach and her team declined to give.
Stefani, 53, has been accused numerous times of cultural appropriation over the years. Over the summer, she faced backlash for wearing her hair in dreadlocks as well as a dress inspired by the Jamaican flag.
“[It] should be OK to be inspired by other cultures because if we’re not allowed, then that’s dividing people, right?” she asked Allure.
The “Rich Girl” performer has given that line time and time again when faced with appropriation allegations, which go all the way back to her No Doubt era, when she was often seen wearing a bindi because she was dating her Indian bandmate Tony Kanal.
“I get a little defensive when people [call it culture appropriation], because if we didn’t allow each other to share our cultures, what would we be?” she asked Billboard in 2019.
“You take pride in your culture and have traditions, and then you share them for new things to be created.”
