As we discussed yesterday, I thought Gigi Hadid embarrassed herself at the American Music Awards. Gigi was co-host, and she gamely tried her hand at off-the-cuff comedy and shticky impressions. During the opening monologue, Gigi tried to do an impression of Melania Trump. This is what happened:
Gigi doing a Melania Trump impression. đ #AMAs pic.twitter.com/BlXFrwqRQm
— Common White Girl (@girlposts) November 21, 2016
When I watched that on Sunday, I just cringed. It was so⌠bad. The joke was bad. The impression was bad. The intent behind the impression was bad. But other people hated it for an entirely different reason â because Gigi was mocking the new First Lady, and racism, or something. It was all very convoluted and Iâm not going to delve too deeply into it, mostly because I think some of the âreactionâ being cited by media outlets comes from Alt-Right Twitter users. In any case, Gigi decided to offer a handwritten apology, which she posted to her Twitter. Hereâs the text:
I was honored to host the AMAs last night and to work with some of the most respected writers in the business. I removed or changed anything in the script that I felt took the joke too far, and whether or not you choose to see it, what remained was done in good humor and with no bad intent. I too have been the center of a nationally televised comedy skit that poked fun at my actions and was able to find the humor in it. I believe Melania understands show business and the way shows are written and run. I apologize to anyone that I offended and have only the best wishes for our country.
The fact that Gigi felt she had to issue this apology or clarification is sort of sad. Itâs sad that she got bullied by Alt-Right Trumpers on social media and the story became âGigi is racist!â (which I still donât get). It was just a stupid, embarrassing, ill-conceived impression. She had every right to make jokes about Melania and yes, I also think âMelania understands show business and the way shows are written and run.â For the love of God.
— Gigi Hadid (@GiGiHadid) November 22, 2016
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.
It IS sad. There’s disgusting, sexist, racist “humor”, and there’s just plain bad jokes. Come on now.
Ok, so the Hamilton crew has to apologise to Mike Pence and Hadid has to apologise to Melania for an amateurish impression of her that poked fun at her stealing Michelle Obama’s speech? Ok. I feel the world is playing my son’s favourite game: opposites, where yes is no and no is yes.
Good to hear the number one model isn’t buying the hype of the up and coming FLOTUS. The spin of this new administration is so fast -we as a nation are constantly in a state of nausea. I realize i won’t get off for four years so allow us all to collectively vomit until it’s over, we’ve got to get it out somehow!!
I’m already tired of how we’re being expected to coddle the Trump family and their supporters right now and give them special treatment. It’s always been the norm for politicians and public figures to be mocked and parodied on television, and impersonating someone usually means trying to at least sound a little bit like them. But now, suddenly that’s ‘bullying’ because Trump won the election. I’m sure the same people crying ‘bullying’ and ‘RACISM AGAINST WHITES!’ about what Gigi said wouldn’t bat an eyelash if some other white celebrity was being mocked/parodied/impersonated on television- like say, Kim Kardashian or Bill Clinton.
She wanted to apologize.
First of all, gigi is half Muslim so she has right to mock the new first lady considering the new friggin president suggested he’s banning them. Second, gigi didn’t write anything that she said that night. Award ceremonies have writers that write everything. She was just reading a script. If people were pissed, they should be mad at the writers! But we are talking about alt-rights so asking them to act rationally probably won’t happen.
@Margo
You do realize Muslim is a religion and not an ethnicity right? She’s half Dutch and half Palestinian…
Half Muslim? That’s a religion, NOT an ethnicity. I think you mean to say half Dutch, half “Palestinian.” And all this fuss about her mocking a foreign accent, by a few people–WTH? To accurately do an impression of a person who has an accent, you have to imitate the accent, too; why on earth, and to who, is that offensive?
What ethnicity is half muslim exactly?
I’m a quarter Arab, so I guess your thinking makes me quarter Muslim, right?
Religion =/= ethnicity. And vice versa
“half Muslim” LOL!
LOL indeed. ^_____^
Gigi’s father is Palestinian (does he also identify religiously as Muslim? I don’t know much about the Hadids), so I think Margo was trying to say that as the daughter of a Muslim immigrant, you could see part of the reason why she probably wouldn’t feel hesitant about mocking the first lady of the president who wants to ban them from the country.
Her father IS Muslim.
I’m just gonna stick with ‘when they go low, we go higher’. As much as I dislike her, i don’t feel like making fun of Melania’s accent is the way to go. We can do better.
I didn’t notice the accent as much as the making fun of plagiarism-
As someone w a slight accent in English myself (English is not my 1st language) I have never been offended by my husband or friends making fun of it a little. Does this mean I’m just jaded and callous, and hopelessly politically incorrect? No, actually–nor is Gigi’s terrible imitation of Melania meant as a jab at the soon-to-be First Lady’s *accent.* It is not “going low” when one does “comedy”–or poorly attempts it—by impersonating everything about a person: physical mannerisms, the pitch of the voice, vocal intonations, and yes, any accent, whatever kind it might be. People disguise their faces and bodies to do impersonations, why would they not disguise their voices too? This whole PC speech thing has now gone so far over the top that’s it’s become restrictive, and getting ludicrous, too.
She wasn’t making fun of her accent! She was doing an impression. What sense would it make if she did a British accent or a southern accent for example when Melania doesn’t speak like that.
She’s not a comedian therefore, she was not doing an impression. She’s known for keeping quiet and showing off her good looks.
@Dani Did I say she was a comedian? Are only comedians allowed to do impressions? If that’s the case, they should cancel SNL since they allow non-comedians on that show who do impressions. Give me a break!
Well Dani I didnt know only comedians were allowed to do impressions, you learn something new everyday…..
@Lenn
I am confused. Let me see..Melania has a strong eastern european accent. How can you do an impression of her and not attempt the accent? Lol thats like saying Tom Hiddleston shouldn’t do a strong New York accent when he does his (underwhelming) Robert de Niro impersonation.Or Kate McKinnon shouldn’t do a german accent when she does her ( excellent) Merkel impersonation.
i’m sure she got the Trump brain-dead Nazi special for being half Middle Eastern, no way are those extremist tools going to tolerate the Eastern Euro immigrant mail order bride being ridiculed by the Arab girl who’s father and boyfriend are Muslim.
She should have stood her ground and just said – it was a bad joke, I’m no comedian….now eff off.
That said,I look at those pictures and really want her to do something about those moles.
My skin looks like that , freckles and moles everywhere, and let me tell you, removing them would cost a ton and probably scar =(
Which actually makes me think I could maybe pull off a toned down version of her makeup. Which I think is excellent. Especially the lip.
My skin is similar, freckles and small moles (And eww…I hate that word for some reason), and my dermatologist and I have to keep serious tabs on the dreaded melanoma. Do you have the same issues? My health insurance used to cover most of any removal procedure if necessary, but my deductible goes bats%*t next year! I do heart my face freckles though. I actually used to be darken them with bronzer in my twenties.
I took pictures of my whole body so I know if any of them are going crazy or changing, because otherwise? I’m effed. I was bored in highschool and counted over 150 on one leg, no way I’m gonna keep track of all those babies.
I go in probably twice a year with two I’m paranoid are changing, and my Dr’s always ‘nah, normal’. Insurance wil only cover the removal if they are abnormal unfortunately so I’m out of luck. Otherwise its $150 per spot. Lucky for me, my baby like em.
I also sunscreen like a mofo and wear a giant hat and longsleeves in the sun like an old lady though to avoid getting more body freckles. If I was slightly more glamorous I’d upgrade to a parasol, but I don’t think I can swing that yet.
I get your point, completely (we are totally on the same page here), but she’s not an Arab girl. She’s a mixed ethnicity American. I’m not a Jamaican girl just ’cause my mum’s Jamaican, or an Arab girl because my dad’s half Arab. I know it’s probably meant to be from the viewpoint of her detractors, but it still seems a bit heritage top trumps, no pun intended ( i.e. you’re Arab when you agree with us, but Euro when we disagree and vice versa). Especially as afterwards you use phrasing about eastern European immigrant bride regarding Melania Trump as an insult when Gigi’s mum is a Dutch immigrant bride. It detracts from your argument.
I hate when celebrities feel the urge apologize for whatever stupid joke they have said or done to not alienate the audience and to still be liked.
That joke was written, rehearsed and thought through by many people so you either stick to it and own it in good times and bad times or you just refuse to do it.
That was a bad joke and she knew it. She is so dumb.
In her defense (can’t believe I am defending her), she didn’t write this. Someone else came up with these ideas and they all thought it was a good idea. She was just going along. She is young. She could have genuinely been surprised at the blow back and felt bad. If anyone needed to apologize, it really wasn’t some dumb kid for doing what she was told.
That being said, mainstream music is so dull that they turned the show into a trump roast. Sounds exciting.
When impersonating Melania Trump and mocking her plagiarism, how should she have spoken? And are the rules the same for all celebrities being parodied and mocked, or just certain ones?
I think her apology was good – and I like that it wasn’t complete groveling. She explained, but didn’t do the usual “I’m sorry that you felt offended” – it was a bit more genuine seeming than most.
That being said – I don’t personally think her impression was all that mean. I think there’s a certain gray area with impressions where you need to be somewhat careful. Overall though, I think it was just a watered down ‘safe’ joke compared to the kind of jokes that could be made about the Trumps.
I don’t think the imitation of her facial expressions was ‘wrong’ either. I’ve seen photos of Melania when she was in her late teens, early twenties. Her ‘original’ face was a lot different looking than her current face – and I took the expression as poking fun at her plastic surgery more than anything. Sure, it’s not the NICEST, but again, it wasn’t that mean. She’s got that cat-eyed, overdone tweaked look about her – and comedians will poke fun at other celebrities for the same things. Because Gigi is a model, does it mean she can’t poke fun at it? I don’t personally think so, but that’s just me. I could be completely wrong, and I’ll admit it.
I think ultimately, no matter what she said about Melania, she was going to get push back from the rabid Trump fans. She could have made the most innocuous comment ever, and she’d have seen backlash. These are the people who constantly whined about Michelle Obama being ‘manish’ (and I still don’t understand that because I think she’s gorgeous) or daring to wear sleeveless dresses. The same people who constantly complain about how politically correct the world is, or how social justice warriors are ruining the world, and all the special snowflakes are messed up and ridiculous because of participation medals. But they’re also the first group of people to be outraged over something ridiculous. They ARE the special snowflakes that they complain about.
I do have to wonder how this presidency is going to go as far as comedy. If anyone dares make a joke or comment on something dumb the president does – are they going to be threatened, or bullied? I hope that it doesn’t come to that, but at this point, I really doubt it could go any other way.
I agree! I was happy she didn’t grovel out an apology either – I like that she said they should understand how the business works and roll with it. And I thought she was funny. đ
I’d rather her apologize for hosting when she had no experience to do so. She was incredibly awkward and cringe worthy, so hopefully producers realizing that these nepotism models will not give you ratings like you think.
Laura Benanti is really the only one who can do a quality Melania Trump impression.
I saw her on one of the shows last night and she really seemed embarrassed by the whole situation. She claimed she was not a comedian and didn’t try to be. She read what was on the prompter trying to host and look pretty. She succeeded in the pretty part, not so much as a host.
I’m going to give her the “at least she tried” shrug. I remember watching Cindy Crawford hosting early episodes of MTV’s House of Style and man, she was wooden. But she got better and it’s got to take some balls to step out of your comfort zone in such a public forum. I must say though, in the time of pre-typed notes apologies (Taylor swift style), I found her hand-written version slightly endearing. Miss Manners would approve.
Lol Cindy Crawford….model tip model tip.
i don’t get why this girl is a thing, full stop, every time i see her in a show is looking like an 80s prom reject with the utmost badly done hair and the exact shade of red every girl in the video had in the 80s
Me neither QQ. Connections maybe….
It’s sad how bigot white twitter has been out in full force lately trying to bully and threaten to boycott at the slightest thing.
Her impersonation lasted a whole 10 seconds. I didn’t like it but there was nothing racist about it. Anyone who impersonates Melania will have to imitate her accent whether bigots like it or not.
As for Zayn – he was dragged mercilessly for saying about his trophy “this has my name on it, right?”. People are so sensitive nowadays – feels like a witch hunt. His Facebook page is now down and she had to desactivate comments on her IG AMA pics because of the comments left by Alt-right a**holes.
I hope they still celebrated his win.
This is ridiculous. Gigi shouldn’t have apologized because she did nothing wrong. The people complaining that this was racist (how Sway?!) are thin-skinned crybabies like the man they voted for. I don’t remember these ppl complaining when Mrs.Obama was being called an ape amongst other nasty, racist things she’s been referred to the last eight years. These ppl make nauseous.
I really realised how much the tabloid press hates Zayn. He just won an AMA and all they could focus on was 1D. Had this been any other young british artist they would have celebrated it.
Granted I haven’t seen any press on him, but they probably only focused on 1D because he hadn’t done much solo. His album didn’t perform that great, he only released one single, and the only time you see him is because he follows Gigi around. Even Zayn focused on 1D during his acceptance speech.
I’ve noticed that too. It’s sad. Same with MTV UK and others. They love belittling or ridiculing Zayn, and blowing Harry’s trumpet. I’m not a 1D fan. I like Zayn, follow him and it was just impossible not to notice all the bad press he constantly gets. Go to MTV UK, read the articles on Zayn, then on Harry – the difference is shocking.
I wish she hadn’t apologised. Her impression wasn’t the best but she didn’t do anything that hasn’t been done on SNL and the Stephen Colbert show and as she said the jokes were written by writers not by her.
Those people who were offended by that are looking to stir unnecessary trouble. Those crazy people are sending tweets calling her boyfriend a terrorist and stuff like that. The real racism is not coming from her thats for sure.
Thank you!
Melania Trump does not deserve any type of respect for being married and supporting a racist and gropist pos, bye.
But does she know where Pakistan is located?
This was on Oh no they didn’t.
After her Melania Trump impression at the American Music Awards Trump supporters are calling for Maybelline (who Gigi is the current face of) to fire the half Palestinian model, calling the impression ‘racist’.
All while flooding her twitter and instagram with racist and islamophobic comments about her, her Palestinian father and Pakistani boyfriend Zayn (both muslims), as well as graphic death and rape threats, because Trump supporters care soooo much about racism and women. This caused her to disable comments on her most recent photos.
It’s so very daft. White woman makes fun of white woman. It wasn’t racist, at all. Xenophobic? I don’t really think so. Ill judged? Perhaps. Not funny? Definitely. But that’s on the writers, not her. And twitter turns into an echo chamber with these sorts of things. Avalanches of hate or love depending on where the tweeter stands politically. I look forward to the day twitter stops being treated like a legit news source when it’s mostly people screeching incoherently into an unanswerable abyss.
Agreed, But just one little thing. Gigis father is middle eastern, so her heritage isn’t white american.
I think Gigi is probably getting her first taste of general mix and match racism/xenophobia/Islamophobia in the brave new Trump world. The last name Hadid is all the haters needed to see to set them off. Truth be told, the joke is an excuse to try to take down Gigi as the perceived “enemy”. This is probably brand new to her and her team and they handled it badly. No apology needed. She should have stood her ground. They won’t stop coming for her. This is the new racism and her blond hair, blue eyes and light skin won’t protect her from neo-Nazi purists.
I thought it was tacky and I cringed at the accent. But I don’t think it deserves all this drama and attention. No need to issue some big apology. Meh.
This is getting to be too much. Trump doesn’t have to apologize for a single thing he’s said or done according to his supporters but if someone dare makes a joke about him or his wife they have to crucify that person.
It’s scary the stuff his supporters are saying about Gigi, her family and Zayn. Is this the world we are going to live in? Because if so I want out.
Also I find it funny that Trump supporters really think Maybelline is going to let Gigi go. They call the people on the left cry babies but all I’ve seen them do is protest Starbucks, boycott Hamilton and then cry about Gigi and want her to get fired.
So when is Trump going to apologize for the ten thousand terrible things he’s said about mostly women and minorities? When is he going to apologize for being a sexual predator?
There was no need to apologize. It sets a terrible precedent caving into right wing racist pressure. Melania Trump is a known liar with a sketchy past. She got off easy with that joke. Sit down.
My only comment is that we need to stop referring to white nationalists as the “alt-right”. They’re neo-nazis. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional, but we cannot normalize this group’s behavior by using buzzwords like ‘alternative right’. Call them nazis, call them white nationalists – call them what they actually are.
Good point.
Good point. There was an article about that up on Jezebel the other day. It would be nice if there was some term that captured all of their dangerous stances though.
This point is becoming less relevant as this fringe group gets more publicity, though.
Most people I know already equate “alt-right” with “white supremacist” and with the continual exposure of what the group represents, the semantic disputes will gradually fade away.
It was a joke about Melania’s plagiarism. NOT racist. When doing impressions you can no longer make an effort to sound like the person you’re putting on? So Alec Baldwin’s Trump was…anti-semetic?
Hey people – calm down!
The joke / impression was not good but her intend wasnt racist!
Having no talent for comedy isnt the same to being racist.
Good lord – melania copied michelles speech – people can make jokes about it.
Its sad, that today theres always a backlash 4 everything.
Wohooooo
Calm down twitter trolls
Can I say this is the first time I have disliked the way Gigi looks?
Her makeup and hair are waayy aging.
I didn’t think The Incident was noteworthy, myself… it’s like like there was a righteous burn or that shade was hurled with the force of a trebuchet, or that an ocean of tea was spilled or insert-metaphore-here. Poor kid prolly didn’t get the memo that all things Trump are to be spoken of in a reverent tone, with eyes downcast and knee bent in genuflection. Oops.