Journalists from Vanity Fair and Harper’s magazine are now apologizing after they took to social media to criticize the appearance of Beyoncé and Jay-Z‘s 7-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy Carter.
via Page Six:
Megan Thee Stallion shared photos of Beyoncé, Blue Ivy and herself celebrating New Year’s Eve on Instagram, prompting Vanity Fair critic K. Austin Collins to write in a since-deleted tweet, “I have a feeling the jay z face genes are about to really hit Blue Ivy and I feel so sorry for her.”
Violet Lucca, web editor for Harper’s, replied, “Or she’ll just get plastic surgery at 16 a la Kylie Jenner and we’ll all have to pretend that she always looked that way…I can’t allow myself to feel too sorry for the incredibly rich!”
Lucca also deleted her tweet.
After their tweets went viral and caused a firestorm on social media, both journalists apologized.
“I’m sorry about the Blue Ivy tweet — bad joke, and black girls in particular deserve better,” Collins tweeted. He later responded to a person who called him out, writing, “No, you’re right. Poor form on my end. Thanks all for calling it out.”
Lucca said her tweet was “petty” but seemed to feel the responses she received were dramatic.
“Sorry I was cleaning my apartment while this blew up,” she responded to one Twitter user. “children of famous ought to be off limits, but time and again they haven’t been. So I said something petty and have been called ugly, old, and a racist.”
She added in a follow-up tweet, “I’m not playing the victim…sorry that I insulted Beyoncé’s daughter by suggesting that she might get plastic surgery some day, like many children of famous people do.”
It’s unfortunate that there are people who think this behavior is okay holding positions in newsrooms across the country.
