Why are we always expected to accept less-than with grace (or hug folks who murder family members).
Case in point: By now y’all have heard about Kelly Rowland allegedly beating feet to protest the Today Show’s sub-par digs. The former Destiny’s Child member appeared during the show’s 8 o’clock hour to promote “Mea Culpa,” her new Netflix movie scheduled for release next week. And then she was to fill in as a guest host on Thursday’s fourth hour, Today with Hoda & Jenna, but exited stage right abruptly over what Page Six first reported was an issue with her dressing room.
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Neither Today nor Rowland’s team have commented, according to Entertainment Weekly, but sources told People “Kelly walked out because she and her team didn’t like her dressing room,” which has been described as a glorified closet in an old building. When her entourage inquired about the green room upstairs, they learned it was already occupied by JLo, there to promote her own new projects.
The show reportedly presented other options, which the NY Post implied should’ve been satisfactory, but Rowland left—the show and co-host Hoda Kotb—in a lurch. Today scrambled and asked Rita Ora—which the British pop star confirmed on her IG account—to step in two minutes before air time.
End of story, right? Wrong. Folks (read: wypipo), including housewife of something or other Bethenny Frankel in a now-unavailable TikTok rant, got up in arms, calling Rowland a diva and questioning her right to demand respect.
As usual, the Black internet rose to Rowland’s defense, reminding us that Black women are always considered problematic when they ask for equal treatment.
“Why does she have to be ‘dramatic’ just because she has standards?” asked Tiffany51231 in a TikTok video. “Is anybody thinking, what if JLo was being difficult, and was, like, give me this or I’m out?”
TikTok user thekempire implied the same in his video: “I wanna give Kelly Rowland some grace based off of past history. We’ve never heard of Kelly Rowland being a diva. We’ve heard of Jennifer Lopez allegedly being a diva.”
The billiondollarfit called the Today Show to task, saying in her TikTok video, “Don’t play in that woman’s face. This wasn’t something that was planned at the last minute. You guys knew that she was supposed .. to be a guest host on that show. Why is she in some little tiny closet of a room, while JLo-I-can’t-hold-a-note is in a bigger room?”
And arc_warrior asked pointedly in his TikTok, “Who the hell does Kelly Rowland think she is showing the world that celebrities actually get to have boundaries and that they are not here just to entertain us? Who the hell does Kelly Rowland think she is inspiring young women, namely Black women, that they can enforce boundaries no matter what the situation is and no matter how big the person or show is?”
We don’t know the full dressing room backstory, but it seems it was the second time that day the folks at Today tried to throw shade at Rowland. During her earlier appearance to plug “Mea Culpa,” host Savannah Guthrie used part of Rowland’s time to divert attention to best friend and former Destiny’s Child member Beyoncé.
Black folks online had her back after that interview, too. Her fans ain’t having any Kelly Rowland slander, and neither, as we saw Thursday, is she.
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