TLC’s Chilli Accused Of Colorism After Dismissing “Chocolate” Compliment, Says She’s “Caramel”
Was it the “Red Light Special” or the redbone special?
TLC’s Chilli found herself in some heat after “correcting” a fan who complimentarily compared her to chocolate within the comment section of a video featuring the singer dancing with boyfriend, actor Matthew Lawrence.
“OK Matthew! He got some chocolate now he got some moves!! I approve!!,” commented one fan of the couple, with the “No Scrubs” songstress responding with, “Caramel,” followed by a winking emoji and a star eyes emoji.
While the singer likely didn’t mean to offend, many took issue with the beauty disassociating herself from a “chocolate” skin tone in favor of the lighter-brown sweet, which was perceived as a rejection of seeing beauty in her own shade — and dark skin in general.
“your skin is brown Chili. You do in fact [qualify] as ‘chocolate.’ Left-Eye qualified as ‘caramel’. Love yourself!” wrote one follower, with another adding, “you wanna be lightskin so bad… sis you’re brown skin like chocolate, its okay.”
Followers of TNT also shared their thoughts, with one offering, “I don’t even think the person literally meant chocolate as in the color of chocolate. She meant he got himself a BLACK woman. I don’t even understand what was the point of tryna correct it caramel lol. Girl, you black and that’s beautiful.”
Another added, “Colorism got everybody in a chokehold. It’s tiring at this point.”
After noticing the critical comments, the Crazy Sexy Cool artist, responded to one that read, “it’s almost like she didn’t like being called chocolate, but she is chocolate and chocolate is beautiful. Never be ashamed of that.”
“Chocolate is beautiful also,” Chilli responded, “never said it wasn’t. But without a tan, I’m caramel. What’s the harm in being truthful? Good grief.”
Chilli also recently made headlines after ex-boyfriend Usher revealed that she rejected his marriage proposal back in 2004 before the couple split for good.
“I wanted to marry her. I proposed and she told me no. I went through a great deal of pain after that, not trusting women or wanting to open up,” he revealed following his own nuptials to Jennifer Goicoechea.
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