TikTok star Bella Poarch addresses outrage over racism accusations Instagram: bella.poarch[jwplayer ksH6zuKH]The TikToker behind the site\u2019s wildly popular \u201cM to the B\u201d video is facing allegations of racist behavior, after viewers took issue with one of her tattoos and a nickname she\u2019d given to one of her friends. Bella Poarch rose to fame in mid-September, after uploading herself lipsyncing to Millie B\u2019s \u201cM to the B\u201d on TikTok. This quickly skyrocketed her to viral status on the already popular video app, receiving a mind-boggling 30 million likes and breaking the site\u2019s record for getting the most likes on a single post. Of course, with internet stardom comes internet critics, who quickly uncovered some offensive behavior from the star that is causing some major drama around her newly-famous status. Viewers were quick to take issue with one of Poarch\u2019s tattoos, which is the Japanese Rising Sun \u2014 a symbol known for its use on the Japanese Imperial Flag in WWII. That\u2019s not all; others accused her of using an offensive nickname to refer to one of her friends, claiming that she\u2019d called the friend \u2014 a person of color \u2014 \u201cHarambe.\u201d Poarch addressed the backlash in a series of TikTok comments on September 16, clarifying that her friend is okay with the nickname and that the name had stuck during his time in the military. \u201cI\u2019m sorry that you believed rumors about me and my best friend Albert,\u201d Poarch wrote. \u201cHe\u2019s Samoan and not Black, and that\u2019s his military nickname because he\u2019s big and always very protective. That was his name before I even met him.\u201d \u201cPlease stop spreading lies,\u201d she continued. \u201cHe\u2019s very heartbroken and sad about this. We\u2019ve been friends now for three years and for people to tell me I was treating him wrong\u2026 breaks my heart, too. I\u2019m sorry.\u201d Poarch previously published an apology regarding the outrage around her tattoo, writing in a series of Tweets, \u201cI apologize to Koreans, because six months ago I got a tattoo of the red sun with 16 rays. At that time, I didn\u2019t know the history, but when I found out, I immediately scheduled it for removal.\u201d I apologize to Koreans because 6 months ago I got a tattoo of the red sun with 16 rays. At that time, I didn\u2019t know the history. But when I found out, I immediately had it covered and scheduled for removal. I am ashamed of myself for not doing my research. I sincerely apologize. \u2014 Bella Poarch (@bellapoarch) September 6, 2020 Considering her relatively quick rise to internet fame, it comes as little surprise that critics aren\u2019t happy with her response to the matter, likewise finding fault with TikTok fandom for producing massive social media stars with relatively short turnaround.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TikTok star Bella Poarch addresses outrage over racism accusations Instagram: bella.poarch[jwplayer ksH6zuKH]The TikToker behind the site\u2019s wildly popular \u201cM to the B\u201d video is facing allegations of racist behavior, after viewers took issue with one of her tattoos and a nickname she\u2019d given to one of her friends. Bella Poarch rose to fame in mid-September, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60725\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}