Kendra Wilkinson Responds To ‘Racist’ Backlash After Picking Cotton
Kendra Wilkinson is hitting back at social media users calling her “racist” after she posted a photo of herself picking cotton to her Instagram Stories on November 22. Kendra, who shot to fame as a Playboy bunny on E!’s The Girls Next Door, received some serious backlash for the post, as some claimed the snap which showed her holding some cotton her hand was overtly “racist.”
The Shade Room re-uploaded Kendra’s photo to Instagram, which showed her in a cotton field in Texas alongside the caption, “I always wanted to pick cotton. Lol.” She then joked about being worried about getting shot because she was trespassing on land.
The outlet also posted two videos Kendra posted shortly afterwards, where she explained her decision to run into the field after noticing that her cotton picking photo was getting some intense backlash and said she was “just having fun.”
After a number of Instagram users then continued to slam the star in the comments section, Wilkinson hit back once again on Twitter and denied that her post had anything to do with race.
“Lol. I just wanted to pick cotton from a plant cuz I’ve always wondered how it really felt. Never in my life thought of color or race at the time,” she hit back after a barrage of comments claimed she was being “racist” by posting the controversial photo, according to Us Weekly.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bb0N_VPF5nh/
“I am not racist. Was just having fun [and] wanted to feel [and] wondered how it felt,” she added on Twitter in response to the barrage of hate she received for her Instagram Stories post.
Kendra then pointed out that she was reading much of the backlash with the father-in-law, the dad of her husband of almost a decade, former football player Hank Baskett.
“I can’t believe I’m getting accused of being racist when I’m sitting here with my black father in law,” she said, claiming that they were both “baffled at the accusations” that her photo was at all racially motivated.
She then viciously slammed anyone accusing her of having negative intentions before posting the photo, which caused a wave of passionate responses online.
“F*** off to anyone who don’t know me n know what I’m about,” Kendra wrote on Twitter. “Just cuz I picked some f***ng cotton. It’s a f***ing plant. Omg I can’t.”
Wilkinson’s rep also issued an apology to TMZ, where they made it clear that the star never intended to upset or offend anyone with her post.
But despite Kendra and her representative’s response to the criticism, the backlash continued in the comments section of The Shade Room’s re-upload of her Instagram Stories image as social media users continued to call out the former Playboy model.
“She did not think this one through and I get why [people] are upset,” one fan responded, while Instagram user @finechyna1216 commented on the post, “Talking about picking cotton & getting shot, girl you with a black man, show some respect for our struggle.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BbSTbKyAhEM/?taken-by=kendra_wilkinson_baskett
Others even accused Wilkinson of purposefully uploading the photo to her account because she knew it would cause a pretty intense reaction from her followers.
But while some slammed the reality star, others took the time to defend Wilkinson against the haters who were calling her out.
“Y’all got to chill and realize some things aren’t a battle,” one responder said in defense of Kendra and her controversial Instagram Stories photo. “They still pick cotton [to] this day they just don’t use slaves to do it… I’ve never seen a cotton field I probably would [have] picked some too.”
“I aint no fan of Kendra but the woman just wanted to pick cotton. Why turn everything into [a] racist thing?” said another.
[Featured Image by Isaac Brekken/Getty Images for WE tv]
