Gwen Stefani has declared that she is Japanese in a strange interview after accusations of cultural appropriation.
During the early stages of the 53-year-old's career, she was known for being inspired by Japanese aesthetics. In 2004, she released her album Love. Angel. Music. Baby., which featured the song 'Harajuku Girls' where she sang Japanese words about her devotion to the culture's street style.
In addition to this, Stefani released her famous Harajuku Lovers perfume collection in 2008 which had a bottle shaped like a doll of the singer. The collection also came with bottles of the four Japanese-American backing dancers that supported her on red carpets.
In recent years, many people have reflected on her musical discography and suggested that the 'Hollaback Girl' singer was profiting off the country's culture with her career choices.
Now, in a new interview with Filipina-American journalist Jesa Marie Calaor for Allure, Stefani finally responded to the claims after being questioned about what she had understood from the online response to her Japanese-inspired perfume launch.
The 'Rich Girl' hitmaker explained that when she was growing up, her father traveled from US and Japan and would come home with stories of the country - which led her to voyage to Harajuku as an adult to experience it first-hand.
"That was my Japanese influence and that was a culture that was so rich with tradition, yet so futuristic [with] so much attention to art and detail and discipline and it was fascinating to me," she said. "I said, 'My God, I’m Japanese and I didn’t know it.'"
The early 2000s chart-topper insisted that her fixation with the country was an "innocence" and stated that she doesn't agree that there is criticism towards her being a "fan" of the culture.
"I think it was a beautiful time of creativity… a time of the ping-pong match between Harajuku culture and American culture. [It] should be okay to be inspired by other cultures because if we’re not allowed then that’s dividing people, right?", she added.
The outlet's interviewer wrote that Stefani claimed twice that she was Japanese, while also saying she was "a little bit of an Orange County girl, a little bit of a Japanese girl, a little bit of an English girl".
Despite how her remarks have come across, the journalist asserted that she believes that the 'Luxurious' singer was not being "malicious" and contacted her representatives for clarification - but that was declined.
After the interview was posted, it was widely distributed on Twitter, with journalist Telon Chusk writing: "Gwen Stefani telling an Asian American interviewer that she identifies as Japanese is the kind of oblivion I'm trying to channel in this dark cruel world."
Another user interjected and said: "It is disappointing that Gwen Stefani is choosing to double down on her Orientalism in 2023. I remember how uncomfortable her 'Harajuku Girls' era made me almost 20 years ago, but it wasn’t so easy to share those feelings pre-social media."
A third person commented: "Imagine you're Gwen Stefani's pr team and you've done the years of work to bury her fetishism and cultural appropriation from the public's consciousness and in 2023 she brings it back to the forefront, DOUBLES DOWN, and goes around calling herself Japanese. I would just quit lmao."
The singer ended her interview by telling the publication that due to her upbringing in Anaheim, California, not only does she identify with Japan but also with Hispanic and Latinx cultures as well.
"The music, the way the girls wore their makeup, the clothes they wore, that was my identity," she said. "Even though I'm an Italian American - Irish or whatever mutt that I am - that's who I became because those were my people, right?"
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