Kim Fields is willing to wear several titles when it comes to her adoring fans, but auntie is not one of them.
In fact, the actress is among a growing list of celebrities who want no parts to do with the term, no matter how endearingly fans may use it. “I will rebuke that every time,” Fields told Essence in a recent interview. “I am big sis and this is a #NoAuntieZone. Don’t come up in here with that.”
For Fields, 52, part of her reasoning lies in fans only using the term for women of women being over at least the age of 40. In Fields’ real life she is a wife and mother of two sons. The actress explained that even when it comes to her role on Netflix’s “The Upshaws,” where she plays wife to Mike Epps’ character Bennie and the mother of their two daughters, her sentiments toward auntie remain.
“Don’t sleep on her, now,” Fields said of her character Regina Upshaw. “She is not a mom, put a nail in the coffin and that’s it. I feel like that’s parents overall. That sense of male and that sense of female starts slipping away when you put on monikers like mom, dad, uncle.”
The “Living Single” actress is in good company in the #NoAuntieZone. Singer Mary J. Blige, 50, has even spoken out against fans adoringly referring to her as Auntie Mary. “Why can’t I just be your sister? There’s women that are like WAY older than me calling me ‘auntie’…Come on. Can’t I just be your sister? Your friend in your head?”
Even best friends Oprah Winfrey, 67, and Gayle King, 66, say they have been unable to hold back a cringe by the nickname. “I cringe being called Auntie or Mama by anybody other than my nieces or godchildren,” Winfrey explained to OprahMag.com.
Similarly, King said, “I hate being called auntie. That’s what you say to old people or the old lady who lives in the neighborhood,” stated King. “I get that it’s a sign of respect, but no one’s calling Beyoncé Auntie Beyoncé. The only ones who should be calling me ‘Aunt’ are my niece and nephew and they don’t add the ie.”
And director Ava DuVernay made it clear she is nowhere old enough — currently 49 — for folks to call her anything other than her name, sis or family in general. “Auntie Ava? Why? Am I that old?” She said in the 2019 Oprah Magazine interview. “Because I don’t feel that old. And it’s not a respect thing. Auntie Ava like Aunt Jemima?”
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