RELATED: Kim Kardashian Just Shared Her Favorite Atkins Meal On Instagram
In a series of ads for Kim’s new KKW Beauty line, she’s sporting what appears to be a darker-than-normal skin tone. This picture in particular got a lot of comments:
@KKWBEAUTY Creme Contour Highlight Kit 6.21.17 KKWBEAUTY.COM
A post shared by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on Jun 14, 2017 at 11:39am PDT
Of course, there were people on both sides. Some people accused Kim of blackface:
You dont have to do blackface pic.twitter.com/MLcJ5Hbg9R
— Wynters (@Sacha_Wynters) June 14, 2017
blackface delete this
— blxk (@willfinty) June 14, 2017
you black now sis?
— bonafidehoe (@pettyyonceh) June 14, 2017
Online drama stressing you out? Try this relaxing yoga pose:
While others thought the claims were ridiculous:
So ppl really think @KimKardashian did black face for her new promo for her makeup line….Ppl are wayyy to sensitive ?????????
— RONALD JOHN (@Cre8tivei) June 19, 2017
THE REACH for people saying this is blackface.. y’all really just want to hate her.
— Francisca rogel (@chescababe) June 16, 2017
Kim said in a new interview with The New York Times that her dark skin tone was a combination of being “really tan” and using a photo contrast. “I would obviously never want to offend anyone,” she said. “I used an amazing photographer and a team of people. I was really tan when we shot the images, and it might be that the contrast was off. But I showed the image to many people, to many in the business. No one brought that to our attention. No one mentioned it.”
Sign up for Women’s Health’s newsletter, So This Happened, to get the day’s trending stories and health studies.
That said, she added that she has “the utmost respect for why people might feel the way they did.”
Kim and her team also altered the photos to make them less dark since the controversy. “We made the necessary changes to that photo and the rest of the photos,” she said. “We saw the problem, and we adapted and changed right away. Definitely I have learned from it.”
This isn’t the first time that Kim has been accused of cultural appropriation issues. Fans in April were angered by a Kimoji prayer candle that she sold in her online store—which depicted her as the Virgin Mary, a sacred Christian figure.
Kim’s beauty line—which features a $48 Creme Contour Highlight Kit—is projected by Women’s Wear Daily to sell out in less than five minutes, making her a cool $14.4 million in the process.