R&B singer Sabrina Claudio caught the spotlight for all the wrong reasons this week after old tweets of her disparaging black women and “Hispanic girls” resurfaced.
For those unfamiliar with Claudio, she’s a 21-year-old singer of Cuban and Puerto Rican heritage who’s best known for her sultry, whispery delivery on the sort of R&B songs that are great to have on when you’re having a CBD bath.
Generally regarded as an up-and-coming artist, the “Unravel Me” singer was exposed when tweets from an old Twitter account she used, @ODamnYourUgly, resurfaced. In a separate conversation with a fan, Claudio had admitted using the account before she broke big as a singer.
Claudio’s derogatory comments include frequent use of the n-word, and remarks like “It must suck to be a black girl with no booty” and “Fuck it, I’ll be a black girl for Halloween.”
The tweets—and, it appears, the account itself—have been deleted, but as anyone who knows internet messiness knows, screenshots are forever. A series of captures from one Twitter user shows that Claudio made the comments within the last seven years. One, in which she called an Instagram user a “sweaty chonga” (in response to the user calling her a “pasty white girl,” no less), was made this year.
As is par for the course for these sorts of social-media-driven debacles, on Tuesday, Claudio posted an apology for the “insensitive words” she used.
“Some of the things you are seeing are true while others aren’t,” she wrote on Twitter (she didn’t specify what).
“I realize my past ignorance is affecting people I care so much about and I am so sorry. I’ve made mistakes and while I cannot take them back, I will learn from them,” she concluded.
The apology, predictably, doesn’t acknowledge that Claudio appeared to take special pleasure in cutting down women of color, and employed the use of the n-word even as she clearly sought to create distance from women darker than she is.
Writing for Madame Noire, Renese Ford notes that Claudio has had high-profile collaborations with black male artists, like Khalid, Duckwrth and 6lack, but has “no history of working with black female artists.”
And that, my dears, is what you call showing your whole ass.