Tory Lanez attempted to show his stance on colorism but was thwarted when a woman who appeared in the video called him out on it.
After the premiere of British rapper Nafe Smallz’s video for “Good Love” on Thursday, Lanez posted some behind-the-scenes footage Sunday spotlighting how the music industry favors lighter-skinned women.
As Lanez is filming the clip, a dark-skinned Black model poses next to him. However, she gets pulled out of the frame and replaced by a lighter-skinned woman. That makes Lanez pump the brakes on the shoot and have the dark-skinned model brought back in.
“You look beautiful, by the way,” he tells the light-skinned woman. Afterward, the shoot resumes with both Lanez and the dark-skinned model appearing pleased.
“This is an On -Going problem in our community of entertainment that needs to stop,” the Canadian performer wrote in the caption. “As a black man , Sometimes I’m going to joke about the black community just like we all do . BUT WHAT IM NOT GOING TO DO IS ALLOW ANY OF THESE DIRECTORS TO DE-VALUE OUR BLACK WOMEN … countless times I’ve seen directors swap out our women of color for women of lighter complexion, or women with straighter hair ETC . … IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY AS ARTIST TO STAND UP AND NOT LET THIS HAPPEN .. it’s BEEN time to embrace our woman of color #BlackIsBeautiful.”
However, according to the dark-skinned model, known as @sultryshen on Instagram, that’s not how things went down.
“Where is the scene then if @torylanez wanted me so bad?!!!” the star, who earlier shared footage of herself in the video, posited on her Instagram Story Sunday before tagging one of the video’s directors, Capone, and his production company. She also added the hashtag #fakenews.
Next, the model, who does appear in the video but not solo in the scene Lanez posted, uploaded a screenshot of an exchange she had with Lanez in the DMs.
“I’m glad you made the cut,” he said in response to her previous IG Story post. “And people got to see what really happened. Keep you u baby girl.”
“You should of had this same energy on set! “#SetUpOnSet,” the model wrote over the screenshot, which she posted to her Story. It isn’t clear if she responded to Lanez’s DMs directly.
Additionally, the model told GossipoftheCity that Lanez asked her and the light-skinned model to each do one-on-one scenes with him.
“When it was her turn, he said cut the video and make it appear as if it had something to do with race,” she wrote. “I know the directors very well … and they have made me the lead girl in that video and many others. [Lanez] never actually spoke to me on that set and kept telling [the light-skinned model] how beautiful she was.”
For his part, Capone has not said much on the matter except for writing “Hmmm… interesting…” on his Instagram Story and sharing behind-the-scenes footage of the video on his production company’s IG account. The footage is captioned “🤐.”
Lanez has remained silent but fans are littering his comments section calling him out for apparently being disingenuous.
“This video fake asf 😂😂😂😂😂”
“Y’all this whole thing was a lie. He didn’t talk to her for the shoot and she’s not even in the final video.”
“One word…. FAKE!”
“So this fool @torylanez thinks it’s kl to throw my bro @caponeldn under the bus for clout 🤔 listen I’m not denying it’s a ongoing issue BUT don’t be trying to address it for ur own personal gain u clown ! editing videos n lying and s— !” London rapper Fekky said in part on his Instagram account.
