Italian-Irish American singer Gwen Stefani told Allure magazine that she was Japanese. She ain't no hollaback, nor Japanese girl.
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00:00Gwen Stefani is doubling down on the claim that she's Japanese, which she's not. In an interview with Allure,
00:05the Italian-Irish-American singer reflected on the influence Japanese culture had on her upbringing,
00:10particularly noting her father's frequent work travel between California and Japan and the stories he would bring back. Once she visited the country as an
00:17adult, she came to a certain realization. Quote,
00:19I said, my god,
00:20I'm Japanese and I didn't know it. Stefani continued to assert that she was, quote, a little bit of an Orange County girl, a
00:26little bit of a Japanese girl, a little bit of an English girl.
00:29She defended her affinity for these cultures by saying, quote,
00:31even though I'm an Italian-American, Irish, or whatever mutt that I am, that's who I became because those were my people, right?
00:37Stefani has long been criticized for appropriating culture in her music and artistry. In the 90s,
00:42she was seen wearing a bindi and donning Bantu knots. In the mid-2000s,
00:45she traveled with four Japanese backup dancers whom she called her Harajuku girls. Around the same time,
00:50she donned Chola-inspired looks for her luxurious music video, and even last year, she sported dreadlocks in Sean Paul's Light My Fire music video.