After Jameela Jamil’s latest TV role of LGBT, she came out as a queer after receiving some brutal criticism. When the critics said, ‘Jameela Jamil must not host Legendary,’ something surprising happened. This is a new LGBT competitive ballroom dance show. And, after that, ‘The Good Place’ star announced that she does identify as ‘queer’.
Jameela Jamil wrote: “Twitter is brutal. This is why I never officially came out as queer. It’s not easy within the South Asian community to accept, and I always answered honestly if ever straight-up asked about it on Twitter”.
Jameela has also been in a long term relationship with British Singer James Blake for almost five years. She also added that “It’s scary as an actor to openly admit your sexuality, especially when you are already a brown female in your thirties.”
“I kept [the fact I am queer] low because I was scared of the pain of being accused of performative bandwagon-jumping over something that caused me a lot of confusion, fear, and turmoil when I was a kid,” -she said. “This is absolutely not how I wanted it to come out.”
In addition to that, Jameela had also clarified and explained her role in the HBO reality show. That show was actually about vogueing. It is a dance style having its roots in the 1960s LGBT and the drag culture. It just grew famous after the vogue of Madonna. Video clips saw that it explode into the mainstream.
There were plenty of people who were critical of the involvement of Jameela in a show about the phenomenon. The said that the cast should have connections to the ballroom scene.
Jameela Jamil also explained why she appropriately fitted the show and clarified her reason for her belief.
She said: “I know that my being queer doesn’t qualify me as a ballroom. But I have privilege and power and a large following to bring to this show. And its beautiful contestants and hosts.”
With Jamil trending popularly on Twitter, various reactions to this statement of hers appeared to be more negative than positive. She had to face a lot of criticism for coming out as queer. She was then in a relationship with the famous musician ‘James Blake’.
Also, many people out there have accused the star of coming out. This was to avoid receiving criticism for not being a representative of the LGBTQ community. Another said that, while Jamil had the presenting experience to appear on the program, producers “could have found someone from the culture” instead.
Celebrity performers Trace Lysette and Michelle Visage, who are not in the show, joined in the debate.
Visage retweeted a comment saying there were “literally so many others who actually KNOW about ball who should [be] on”.
Also, the singer, James Blake, who was in a relationship with Jameela is not a stranger to various online controversy.
With a personal brand on body positivity, she had also spoken out against the Kardashians – dubbing the reality TV stars “double agents for the patriarchy” – and speaking out against the airbrushing, detox teas and women’s attitudes towards men’s’ height amongst various other topics. In October, she rolled back on to the comments defending Ellen DeGeneres’s friendship with George W Bush, saying that she had only just learned “the full extent of Bush’s heinous presidency … we weren’t taught much about him at school, we just heard he was stupid. I now understand the rage”.
Last year she made headlines after the death of fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld. She called him “a ruthless, fat-phobic misogynist”.
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