Yahoo News Love Island's Yewande speaks out again amid Lucie controversy
Love Island's Yewande Biala is currently at the centre of a controversy featuring herself and fellow contestant Lucie Donlan, claiming that the latter did not call her by her name because it was too "hard to pronounce", while the latter accused Yewande of "bullying".
Now Yewande has responded to the accusation, and goes into further detail about her experience on both the show and in her life regarding how she feels that she has had her identity undermined by people not using her name.
"I think one of my earliest memories of radicalised re-naming was when I was exploring different secondary schools," she tweeted. "One of the schools... asked for my full name, which is Yewande Elizabeth Biala. After having difficulties pronouncing my name, she went forward and asked if we could put it down as Elizabeth Biala.
Related: Love Island narrator shares update on 2021 series
"In that moment all I heard was that I didn't matter, and I was an inconvenience. From that day I made it my mission to make sure people knew my name was important, after all that is my identity."
The star explained that if someone doesn't have a White European or similar name, it can be seen as an "inconvenience", and people assigning them a nickname rather than using their actual name is a "microaggression" that can cause a lot of distress.
Referring to her time on Love Island, Yewande says she didn't mind constantly correcting the person not using her full name because she thought they would eventually get it right, but claims that one time they said "yeah whatever you know what I mean" and that a producer had to comfort her. Though not directly naming Lucie, it would appear the comments are directed towards her given recent allegations.
This is the last thing I’m going to say about this situation..... pic.twitter.com/oIwvSaCG04
— #ENDSARS (@yewande_biala) January 23, 2021
Related: Love Island's Curtis Pritchard admits he no longer speaks to his fellow stars from the show
"Being Black on TV means not [raising] your voice, not being too defensive, because you don't want to create the narrative of being an angry Black woman or a bully," she continued.
Lucie previously responded to the controversy, stating that she did not mean anything "sinister" by it and had received death threats over it.
Love Island season 6 is available via catch up on ITV Hub.
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