Kelly Rowland may be one of the best looking — and best dressed — stars in music, but the sexy R&B diva wasn’t always as comfortable in her skin as she is now. Rowland recently revealed that she used to think she was unattractive because of her dark skin tone.
In a new interview with EURWeb, Rowland explained that she spent a great deal of time feeling insecure about her dark skin.
“You know what I had great women in my life to help me overcome that. I remember I went through a period where I didn’t embrace my chocolatiness,” she shared. “I didn’t embrace my chocolate lifestyle. Just being a chocolate, lovely, brown-skin girl and being proud of that.”
Rowland revealed that her insecurity became so bad that she began avoiding the sun in order to keep her skin from getting darker. But it was Beyoncé’s mom, Tina Knowles, who finally convinced her to embrace the beauty of her skin.
“And I remember Tina Knowles, Bey’s mom, and I remember being out in the sun and I was trying to shield myself from the sun and she said ‘Are you crazy?’ She said you are absolutely gorgeous and she told me how beautiful I was and how rare chocolate is and how gorgeous the skin is … and all of this stuff. I was like ‘Yeah,’ and a light went off,” said Rowland.
“So in between her and my mother and then me sitting out in the sun a little bit more to be a little more chocolate, you just embrace it,” she continued. “Embrace everything you are as a woman. Even your flaws too. And the things that you want to fix, you make them better.”
We’re proud of Rowland for touching on issues of colorism in the black community and the pressure too many people of color feel to lighter and fit into a Eurocentric idea of beauty. Hopefully, her words can help someone as feel just as good in their chocolate skin as she does.
Unfortunately , she’s not the only one who’s had to struggle to embrace their skin. Check out some other dark-skinned celebs who battled the same issue below. –nicholas robinson
