Gwen Stefani Fuels Controversy After Saying 'I'm Japanese' While Addressing Cultural Appropriation

Todd Williamson/E! Entertainment/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Gwen Stefani

Gwen Stefani is at the center of the cultural appropriation conversation once again.

While promoting the latest collection drop for GXVE Beauty, her vegan makeup line, in an interview with Allure, Stefani was asked to reflect on her Harajuku era.

When the writer asked the singer what she learned from the "praise, backlash, and everything in between," from her Harajuku Lovers line, Stefani talked about growing up with a father who traveled regularly between Japan and California for his job at Yamaha.

"That was my Japanese influence and that was a culture that was so rich with tradition, yet so futuristic [with] so much attention to art and detail and discipline and it was fascinating to me," Stefani, 53, told the magazine. She recalled her dad regaling her with stories from Japan and was excited to visit.

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The No Doubt singer said that when she finally got to visit the Harajuku district in Tokyo, she had a realization.

"I said, 'My God, I'm Japanese and I didn't know it,'" Stefani told Allure. "I am, you know," she added. She then talked about an innocence to her relationship with Japanese culture and called herself a "super fan."

Kevin Mazur/WireImage Gwen Stefani and Harajuku Girls

Stefani further explained: "If [people are] going to criticize me for being a fan of something beautiful and sharing that, then I just think that doesn't feel right."

"I think it was a beautiful time of creativity," she continued. "A time of the ping-pong match between Harajuku culture and American culture."

"[It] should be okay to be inspired by other cultures because if we're not allowed then that's dividing people, right?" Stefani added.

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According to the article, the singer referred to herself as Japanese twice and at one point also described herself as, "a little bit of an Orange County girl, a little bit of a Japanese girl, a little bit of an English girl."

Reps for Stefani and her cosmetics line GXVE Beauty did not immediately respond to a request for comment and clarification. Allure also noted that Stefani declined to add any "on-the-record comment or clarification" about her initial remarks following the initial interview.

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Later in the Allure interview, the "Hollaback" singer said she also appreciated and identified with the Hispanic and Latinx communities in Anaheim, California, where she was raised.

"The music, the way the girls wore their makeup, the clothes they wore, that was my identity," Stefani said. "Even though I'm an Italian American — Irish or whatever mutt that I am — that's who I became because those were my people, right?"

In an interview with Paper magazine in 2021, Stefani shared similar thoughts about appreciating and fan-girling over a culture.

"If we didn't buy and sell and trade our cultures in, we wouldn't have so much beauty, you know?" she said at the time. "We learn from each other, we share from each other, we grow from each other. And all these rules are just dividing us more and more."