Gwen Stefani is known to love Japanese culture, although who doesn't? But she's taking her passion for their culture up a notch when she claimed that she is Japanese herself!
The "Hollaback Girl" singer touched on the subject of her love for Japan and their culture in an interview with Allure magazine while she was promoting her newly launched beauty collection, GXVE.
"That was my Japanese influence and that was a culture that was so rich with tradition, yet so futuristic [with] so much attention to art and detail and discipline and it was fascinating to me," she said and shared how her Italian-American father would come back home from Japan to tell her about his experiences in the country.
"I said, 'My God, I'm Japanese and I didn't know it,'" she proclaimed. "I am, you know."
The writer who interviewed Stefani seemed to be stunned by the singer's statement, but Stefani seemed to be unfazed and defended herself.
"If [people are] going to criticize me for being a fan of something beautiful and sharing that, then I just think that doesn't feel right," she continued.
"[It] should be okay to be inspired by other cultures because if we're not allowed then that's dividing people, right?"
This isn't the first time Stefani has expressed her love for Japanese culture, after all, she did launch the Harajuku Lovers fragrance line.
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Fans React
Stefani's statement about being Japanese, whether she meant it literally or figuratively, received mixed reactions from netizens on Twitter.
"That s**t is bananas," a fan wrote, perhaps referring to a line from the singer's famous song "Hollaback Girl."
Another wrote, "They gave her so many chances to correct herself."
"If Gwen Stefani wants to be Japanese that bad, then throw her ass into a concentration camp and take her family farm."
"I'm conflicted by her: I hate her objectification of Japanese people, but without her, I wouldn't have deep-dived into Japanese/Asian street fashion and learned about Shoichi Aoki and fruits, Gyaru Fashion, Harajuku and Shibuya etc."
According to Page Six, Stefani has been accused of cultural appropriation several times over the years like that time she wore her hair in dreadlocks and another instance wherein she was seen wearing a dress inspired by the Jamaican flag.
In 2019, she addressed the criticisms about her misappropriating cultures, "I get a little defensive when people [call it culture appropriation], because if we didn't allow each other to share our cultures, what would we be?"
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