Beauty brand slammed as racist after making fun of Jordyn Woods's 'bad hair'
A beauty brand has issued a public apology to Jordyn Woods for a meme the company shared on Instagram which poked fun at the entrepreneur and reality star’s natural hair.
Bellami Hair shared an image of Woods — who famously hooked up with Khloé Kardashian’s boyfriend Tristan Thompson despite being best friends with Kylie Jenner — with a natural chin-length bob instead of her signature extensions.
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“When Kylie Jenner stops paying for your lifestyle, including your hair extensions,” the meme read. The brand doubled down with its own caption: “Bad hair is just one betrayal away. These memes have us lolling.”
Actually disgusting that an hair company would post this pic.twitter.com/8xUV1zDCSB
— Poeticdrugs (@1poeticdrugs) March 12, 2019
Commenters called out the company for its poor taste immediately, with one calling the post “absolutely disgusting.” Others accused the company of being blatantly racially insensitive. “They feel comfortable doing this because she’s a [black woman], and it’s exhausting,” one complained.
Every single person in Bellami Hair’s comments excusing that insensitive Jordyn Woods post is white. It is absolutely baffling to me that white people still think it’s their place to tell minorities what we should and shouldn’t be offended by.
— Blake. (@BlakeLawren) March 12, 2019
Bellami Hair responded to the backlash by deleting the meme and replacing it with an apology.
“We believe that all hair types are beautiful, especially natural hair [and] we did not want to hurt or offend anyone with our post,” the brand wrote.
The company conceded that “‘bad hair’ was a very poor choice of words and insensitive,” and called its own behavior “unacceptable” before vowing to “do better” going forward.
A post shared by BELLAMI Hair? (@bellamihair) on Mar 12, 2019 at 9:11am PDT
The brand’s followers have not necessarily been ready to accept the apology, though. Hundreds of commenters felt it was unforgivable.
“Nah. Now I will never purchase from you. So disrespectful and not to mention unprofessional,” one wrote.
“Disgusting, I hope you get a little more education into where your hair for your extensions comes from. Boycott this brand,” another added.
Others debated with each other about the issue at hand. “I think the meme was fine … it was funny, no matter what color the girl is! White girls, black girls and brown girls ALL get extensions. Why take it so personal?! Good grief … relax … why are we making this about race??” one person wrote. Another commented, “To all the white girls in the comments, I’m white and so ashamed to see so much blatant ignorance. You’re making us look so dumb and selfish. This runs deeper than you understand.”
Woods originally shared the photo on her own Instagram, where she reemerged after a hiatus following her alleged betrayal of and subsequent estrangement from the Kardashian family.
A post shared by HEIR JORDYN (@jordynwoods) on Mar 8, 2019 at 3:58pm PST
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