Taye Diggs is in hot water after sharing a video on Instagram in which he compared himself to an animal after shaving off his facial hair.
Diggs shared the video on May 15 with a monkey emoji in the post’s caption. In the video, the “Best Man” actor sang a musical number to note his displeasure and explain why he had to shave his face.
“I just had to shave all my facial hair off for this role that I’m playing in a movie. I’ve never seen myself without facial hair for about 89 years,” he sang. “I really don’t like what I see. I don’t like my upper lip. It makes me feel like a monkey, a monkey, monkey, monkey.”
Then, Diggs went into the chorus of his monkey song and also compared himself to a chimpanzee and an ape.
“I don’t like to look like a monkey,” he bellowed. “I don’t like to look like a monkey. I don’t like to look like an ape. I don’t like to look like a chimpanzee. I want my facial hair back. Can I have my facial hair back?”
Fans dragged Diggs for the song and brought up his past marriage to “Glee” actress Idina Menzel. The two were married for 10 years after meeting on the musical “Rent” back in 1995.
The Broadway stars had a son, 14-year-old Walker Nathaniel Diggs, before separating in 2013. His ex-wife insisted that the “disappointment” from the Black community over Diggs marrying a “white Jewish Girl contributed to their divorce.
After his recent video was shared by The Shade Room on social media, one fan replied, suggesting that the “Best Man Holiday” star must still be traumatized from his marriage for comparing himself to a monkey and sharing it with the world on social media.
“Ex-wife must of told him that is what he looks like WHEN they argued he is still traumatized,” wrote one fan. Another asked, “Did he call himself a monkey?”
“I find this quite disturbing. Black Twitter do your job,” noted one. “Exactly!!! Why the F’k is he calling himself a monkey and an ape!!!!”
“The [ninja emoji] hang w/whites and dated white b’s for the longest. that biracial chick is the only black and that’s bc he fell off and trying to get back on by using the black community sndh,” noted another. One fan replied, “Anything other than being or looking Black for him, including the Monkey reference it’s what he thinks of himself and the rest of us.”
One jokester compared him to other bald singers writing, “You look like Seal or Kem.”
Taye Diggs' one hall pass when he was married to Idina Menzel was Lucy Liu…and he actually got to work with her.
— Chicks in the Office (@ChicksInTheOff) April 30, 2019
Full interview with @TayeDiggs: https://t.co/1TwwDWbYai pic.twitter.com/CIYG9qDWLQ
During an appearance on the “Dinner’s on Me” podcast last year, Menzel revealed that her interracial relationship with Diggs caused him issues with the Black community outside of the theater world.
“When you leave that cocoon, that bubble, and now in his case,” she said. “He was on the cover of Essence and Ebony and being interviewed by all of these Black journalists, and I think, he had his own stuff to deal with that and it seemed like there was disappointment in the community.”
Diggs was reportedly dating Black and Asian actress Apryl Jones from “Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood.” The two were together for close to two years before sparking breakup rumors last summer.
