On the evening of January 12th, Little Mix’s Jesy Nelson received backlash for posting a video of her singing along to an R Kelly song after yelling “yes, R Kelly’s Ignition!” The people calling her out claimed she was uneducated since an entire docuseries about the sexual abuse allegations of R Kelly had just come out. Instead of not singing along to the song, knowing that he’s disgusting, she decided to post on her story to her millions of followers, allegedly praising him and his music.
After the backlash, instead of listening to what people had to say, she disabled her comments, and even friends of hers blocked fans that politely told them to educate Jesy. One of her friends even told fans that they were “looking for pathetic things” to call her out for.
This isn’t the first time that she’s been ignorant. On New Year’s Eve, she posted a video of her white friend singing the n-word a few times in a row in the song “Freaky Friday” by Lil Dicky ft. Chris Brown during a party. She even claimed that she was the only one sober, making this decision to post the video even more ignorant. There have been other allegations of cultural appropriation, scandals surrounding her once having orange dreads, and the tanning of her skin that made even some of her own fans once believe she was mixed raced, even though she’s fully white.
Another incident that happened on January 25th is a video that she posted on her story of her singing along to a Chris Brown song days after allegations came out that he’s a rapist. It almost seems that she’s doing all of this on purpose.
These offenses seem to keep getting brushed aside. She ignores the problematic nature of the situation, and seemingly, many fans of Little Mix tried their best to ignore it as well. Her friends and even her hairstylist have attacked fans for calling her out, calling them pathetic and “petty.” “It’s just hair” or “it’s just a song,” they would say, completely ignoring the deeper feelings that fans have.
A lot of Little Mix fans, called Mixers, are people of color, and a lot of them are black. Those fans are going to be offended and disappointed that their favorite artist is allowing their white friend to say the n-word. It will obviously be a bigger impact on the minority group of fans; no one can change that.
This goes the same way for sexual assault survivors and victims of abuse who don’t agree with Jesy happily singing along to a known pedophile and rapist’s song, as well as a woman abuser’s song. That is something that they will obviously have deep feelings for and won’t blindly be at Jesy’s side to defend her.
Some Mixers have defended her actions, and that’s the bad part about this. It might be hard for them to understand but hey: calling out your favorite artist, actor, or celebrity isn’t hate. You can still adore them but acknowledge that they’ve done something problematic and should apologize. Commenting underneath their pictures telling them what they’ve done is wrong isn’t hate, it’s telling the truth about a situation that needs to be resolved.
This happens all of the time in fandoms. The celebrity that people adore does something wrong and instead of the fans rushing to blame them for their actions, they look for excuses so they can still praise their favorite celebrity and not see what’s so clearly wrong in front of them. They act in denial and look for little things that can excuse said actions, before forever brushing it off to the side and never talking about it again.
I’ve seen Mixers tell other fans that they are “fake fans” if they are not defending Nelson’s actions and that you should be a fan of all of the girl group, not just three of them. I’ve even seen people telling Nelson that she “shouldn’t listen to the haters” and her even liking a few comments that are blatantly defending her, showing that her and these other fans are still very much ignorant and in denial about this all. And that’s where the problem lies.
Instead of talking about the actual issues, like artists supporting very problematic artists or the inappropriate use of the n-word or white people cultural appropriating, they flood the artist with love and praise, as if any of these issues aren’t real issues. Fans talk of “fake wokeness” and “people take things too seriously.” Sexual assault survivors and black people should have the right to feel offended by these posts.
While justifying Jesy’s actions, fans are also making sexual assault survivors who have a right to be disappointed feel their experience discounted. You can’t tell them how to feel if you’ve never been in their shoes. Same with black people dealing with her white friend easily saying the n-word. You can’t tell them how to feel if you aren’t black.
Praising R Kelly and Chris Brown and their songs is still allowing yourself to just brush over all of the allegations and things that they have done. Their music all tie with the disgusting things they have done, so no, it’s not just a song. And she isn’t just oblivious of what these men have done, being in the music industry and all.
Jesy Nelson’s actions and the defending nature of some of her fans just shows how ignorant and unwilling people can be to become educated about these issues.