Social media is a wild, insane place where we spend a ridiculous amount of our time. It doesn’t matter how innocuous the post is, someone will find a way to hate on your fun, happy moment. Music star Chilli recently found herself on the receiving end of negativity over what was a seemingly innocent post.
The TLC singer posted an Instagram video of herself and her boyfriend, actor Matthew Lawrence, dancing while on vacation in Jamaica. One user replied to the post, writing, “OK Matthew! He got some chocolate now he got some moves!! I approve!!”
The “No Scrubs” artist corrected them, responding, “Caramel.”
Apparently, as far as the internet is concerned, this was the wrong answer, as the woman who sang about body image on the song “Unpretty” was accused of not appreciating her own Black skin.
One person referenced her late bandmate Left Eye, writing, “your skin is brown Chili. You do in fact [qualify] as ‘chocolate.’ Left-Eye qualified as ‘caramel.’. Love yourself!”
The presumptuous comments continued with another user replying, “you wanna be lightskin so bad… sis you’re brown skin like chocolate, its okay…”
When someone else wrote, “it’s almost like she didn’t like being called chocolate, but she is chocolate and chocolate is beautiful. Never be ashamed of that,” Chilli had enough of the backlash and clarified her original innocent response.
“Chocolate is beautiful also...never said it wasn’t,” Chilli wrote. “But without a tan, I’m caramel...what’s the harm in being truthful? Good grief.”
So this trailblazing artist made an innocent comment about her skin color—which it seems like she would know better than anyone else—so you all lost your minds and accused her of not loving herself? Does that sum up the madness Instagram inflicted on this sweet video of Chilli and her guy dancing together?
I know some of y’all forget that celebrities are real people when you follow them on social media, but the presumption to tell someone they don’t love their skin is so completely out of pocket. It’s a tough concept for the internet to grasp, but next time, everyone needs to take a beat and relax before they get their outrage fingers going.