As the dumpster fire around YouTuber Colleen Ballinger continues to burn, a newly resurfaced video is throwing some extra fuel onto it. Ballinger, better known as Miranda Sings, performed Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” several years ago, but that’s not the controversial part.
The problem, in a nutshell, is she did it in what appears to be blackface.
While it is unclear when the video was taken, it’s possibly from a show in London’s West End around the summer of 2010. Ballinger posted it to her YouTube channel in February 2018. It is currently unlisted, but still viewable.
Social media influencer Paige Christie tweeted a clip for the video. “I’m gonna need someone to explain the black on her face,” Christie wrote referring to the uneven dark makeup Ballinger is sporting.
“Colleen Ballinger tells the world she’s a racist with her full chest,” Mos-Shogbamimu academic, activist, and author of “This Is Why I Resist: Don’t Define My Black Identity” said. “Imagine doing a Beyoncé song in Blackface and the audience are laughing & being entertained. These White people know what they are doing. Racists be racizisming.”
Some Redditors have claimed Ballinger was sporting green face paint after she sang “Defying Gravity” as Elphaba, from the musical “Wicked.” While the video is shot at a distance so it hard to tell, this could explain why the makeup is so blotchy, as if it was poorly wiped off.
The issue is the audience is clearly laughing at the act. What is funny about her singing a song with two backup dancers that aren’t doing anything humorous? Ballinger is also no stranger to offensive, let alone outright racist, humor either. She issued an apology in 2020 for impersonating a Latina woman in a different video.
“It is not funny, and it is completely hurtful,” Ballinger said in a ukulele-less apology video. “I am so ashamed and embarrassed that I ever thought this was OK. I was a sheltered teenager who was stupid and ignorant and clearly extremely culturally insensitive… Racial stereotypes are not funny, they’re not a joke, and they should never be joked about.”
While Ballinger and her team have not responded to the Beyoncé video, all signs point to this as an international, racially-driven, attempt at humor.
This all comes maybe a week after the YouTuber released a video reacting to accusations that she had inappropriate relationships with teenagers. In the video, she strums a ukulele, while denying claims she “groomed” underage fans. (Despite there being a video of her pressuring and eventually sending lingerie to a then-13-year-old fan, Adam McIntyre.)
There is also a video of her admitting that, as a child, she hurt a dog who bit her in self-defense. She then played it off as if the attack was unprovoked, which resulted in the dog being euthanized. The disturbing part is Ballinger is laughing while telling the story as an adult. Seemingly remorseless that her lies killed an innocent creature who she admitted was defending itself from her.
UPDATE:
TMZ has since run an additional story with new photos supporting the “Wicked” theory.
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