Jesy Nelson’s hotly anticipated solo single ‘Boyz’ with Nicky Minaj dropped in the charts and caused uproar as her former bandmates accused her of ‘blackfishing’ – the term coined to describe a non-black person trying to appear black or mixed race.
Jesy appears of a much darker skin tone in the video, which she states was from a pre-shoot holiday to Antigua. Her former bandmate Leigh-Anne Pinnock accused outright accused her of blackfishing in leaked Instagram messages.
Jesy’s older sister Jade, 34, has waded into the race row and come out in support of her younger sister who she claims is being “bullied”.
In the post she writes, “When bullies deliberately, and under-handedly set out to hurt someone they never expect to get caught. However, when they are exposed and the victim simply stands up for themselves the victim quickly tries to turn the tables to make the victim take the blame. That’s what bullies do.”
“I personally want to say that my intention was never, ever to offend people of colour with this video and my song because, like I said, growing up as a young girl, this is the music that I listened to,” Nelson said.
“These are the videos that I watched and thought were the best. For me personally, 90s/2000 hip-hop, R&B music was the best era of music. I just wanted to celebrate that. I just wanted to celebrate that era of music because it is what I love.”
