Celebrities who reported incidents of racial prejudice

Several celebrities have openly spoken about their struggles with racism. One of them is Serena Williams. In 2021, after it became known that she was going to become a mother with her partner, American businessman Alexis Ohanian, she had a nasty exchange with a colleague.

Romanian tennis player Ilie Nastase made a series of insulting comments about the color of the tennis player's future daughter's skin. Williams then replied on Instagram: "It disappoints me to know we live in a society in which people like Ilie Nastase can make such rac1st comments towards myself and unborn child, and se*ist comments against my peers".

Actor Idris Elba told Vanity Fair of his disappointment after trying to become the next James Bond. There was a lot of controversy surrounding that possible scenario. "I was like, ‘This is crazy!’ James Bond…We’re all actors and we understand that role."

As he said on the Smart Less podcast, 007 "is one of those coveted [roles]. Being asked to be James Bond was like, ‘Ok, you’ve sort of reached the pinnacle'... Those that weren’t happy about the idea made the whole thing disgusting and off-putting because it became about race. It became about nonsense and I got the brunt of it."

In 2012, the then-actress recorded a video to make it known that, as a woman of mixed race "I wasn't black enough for the black roles and I wasn't white enough for the white ones, leaving me somewhere in the middle as the ethnic chameleon who couldn't book a job."

Later, as a British royal, she told Oprah Winfrey that a member of the British Royal Family had "concerns and conversations about how dark Archie's (her first child) skin might be."

During the filming of 'Pulp Fiction', actor Samuel L. Jackson was a victim of the police rac1sm that has made so many headlines in the United States in recent years.

As the actor himself told Vanity Fair, after finishing a meal with friends, he saw five police cars pull up and officers pointing guns at him and his companions. The reason? According to the officers, they had been alerted to the presence of "five black guys standing on the corner with guns and bats".

British model Naomi Campbell also suffered prejudice in her early days: "When I started out, I wasn't hired for certain shows because of the color of my skin," she told The Guardian in an interview.

"But I didn't let that affect me. Since I started going to castings and acting when I was very young, I understood what it meant to be black. You had to go the extra mile. You had to be twice as good."

Born in the United States, actress Lucy Liu is the daughter of Taiwanese parents, and this mix has sometimes worked against her during casting. In the end, they end up saying she is either 'too Asian' or 'too American'.

"If I can’t play certain roles because mainstream Americans still see me as Other, and I don’t want to be cast only in “typically Asian” roles because they reinforce stereotypes, I start to feel the walls of the metaphorical box we AAPI women stand in," she told the Washington Post in an interview.

On 'The Tonight Show', actor Don Cheadle recounted how in his youth, moving to a majority white neighborhood, everything started to be "very different". Black children were often “cautioned” by their parents about how best to behave around police.

“I think a lot of Black people have the story of how their parents had cautioned them about how to comport themselves when they come into contact with law enforcement and the rules of how to just make sure that you can come home and be safe and what you had to do,” he told Fallon.

"So, unfortunately, that was something that was put into our minds very early," Cheadle said, recalling his experience moving to the suburbs from a predominantly black neighborhood in Kansas City.

In an interview with Glamour magazine, Rihanna stated that her skin tone was a problem at school.

"I got teased my entire school life," she told Glamour. "What they were picking on I don't even understand. It was my skin color" [which was lighter than that of her classmates].

Oprah Winfrey, one of the most powerful American TV hosts, endured prejudice in Zurich, Switzerland when she attended the wedding of her friend Tina Turner. On that occasion, she went to an exclusive boutique and wanted to see an expensive crocodile handbag, valued at 38,000.

As she told Entertainment Tonight, the shop assistant refused to show it to her. "You can't afford that bag," she told Entertainment Tonight. Instead, she offered her other, cheaper models, and the presenter claimed that it was all to do with stereotyping.

The Brazilian footballer Vinicius Junior has been condemning prejudice in Spanish football stadiums since 2021. In May 2023, the Real Madrid player said enough was enough. He confronted the fan in the stands who was insulting him because of the color of his skin.

Another Brazilian footballer, Dani Alves, also suffered prejudice on Spanish La Liga football pitches. A banana was thrown at him in April 2014 at Villareal's stadium. Alves' response? He picked it up, peeled it, and took a bite.

Spice Girl Mel B experienced difficulties because of her dark skin color, inherited from her Caribbean father.

Once she became an adult, she continued to face some episodes of discrimination, such as when a South African shop assistant once asked her to leave the shop. "The other girls were outraged and started screaming at the assistant," she explained in a letter published in OK! magazine.

In the past, star couple Chrissy Teigen and John Legend have had to endure a car following them on their way to visit the singer's godmother in Fredericksburg, Virginia. "We were in a nicer neighborhood at night, driving slowly, looking for John’s godmother’s home. These two guys were in a pickup truck slowly tailing us, flashing their lights and trying to speak to us," she told Marie Claire in 2010.

"When we pulled over, they were like, ‘What are you guys looking for?’ and we gave them the address. They literally said, ‘Get your asses out of here!’ and proceeded to follow us all the way into her driveway," she added.

Indian actress Priyanka Chopra told InStyle in an interview that she was once turned down for a role for "the wrong - what word did they use? - 'physicality'".

When she wanted to know what it was about, her agent told her: "I think, Priy, they meant that they wanted someone who’s not brown."

At Heroes Comic Con in Belgium in September 2022, 'Stranger Things' star Caleb McLaughlin told fans: "Even now some people don't follow me or don't support me because I'm black..." He felt he had fewer followers on Instagram than his fellow actors because of his skin color.

He continued: "Sometimes it's hard to talk about and for people to understand, but when I was younger it definitely affected me a lot."

"Knowing that after eight years of working really hard for this country, there are still people who won’t see me for what I am because of my skin color," said in 2017, at the 30th anniversary of the Colorado Women's Foundation, former US first lady Michelle Obama, who in the past was compared to "a monkey in heels".

In 2020, the British singer recounted a story from the past on her Instagram profile. She and her father were the only black customers in a shop in London, where they were looking at and touching a series of items until the owner of the establishment warned them that they had to leave these things because "they weren't allowed to touch them".

As the store manager threatened to call the police, Leona Lewis and her father were forced to leave. She was obviously upset and ended up crying, leaning against a car, as she recalled on Instagram.

Actress Gabourey Sidibe said in 2017 on the blog Lenny Letter (by actress Lena Dunham), that she once went to a well-known fashion shop to buy some sandals and glasses for a friend when the shop assistant suggested she change shops, to one across the street, as they were on sale there... This made her feel "like a beggar".

In 2016, Beyoncé's sister Solange Knowles wrote on her website about an unpleasant event in which a woman threw food at her at one of her concerts. The artist believed that the gesture was rac1st in motivation.

Follow Showbizz Daily to see the best photo galleries every day