Yahoo Movies Colleen Ballinger denies wearing blackface while performing Beyoncé song in resurfaced video
Leon Bennett/Getty Images Colleen Ballinger
Colleen Ballinger, the YouTube creator best known for her alter ego Miranda Sings, is denying that she wore blackface while performing Beyoncé's "Single Ladies" in a years-old video that recently resurfaced and sparked outrage online.
Legal representatives for Ballinger said Thursday that the makeup shown in the video was green face paint worn in a preceding performance of a song from the musical Wicked.
"What you don't see in the clip that was posted online is that Colleen was performing a song from Wicked with Oliver Tompsett, a star from the show," a representative said in a statement to EW. "She painted her face green like the witch. After that number, she went right into 'Single Ladies' (while still wearing the green makeup). At that time, she closed all her shows with that Beyoncé number — it was one of her most popular bits."
The representative also provided a video of Ballinger's full performance, in which she goes directly from her Wicked duet into her rendition of "Single Ladies" while wearing the same makeup, changing only her outfit. (Watch the video below.)
Controversy over Ballinger's "Single Ladies" performance began to mount Wednesday after social media influencer Paige Christie tweeted a clip and wrote, "I'm gonna need someone to explain the black on her face."
The "Single Ladies" video was posted to Ballinger's Miranda Sings YouTube channel in February 2018, marked as unlisted but still viewable. Its resurfacing came amid Ballinger facing accusations of allegedly fostering inappropriate relationships with underage fans.
Ballinger was also recently accused of engaging in racist behavior on the set of her 2016 Netflix series, Haters Back Off. April Korto Quioh, a former employee on the show, recently wrote about her experience in the writers' room, claiming to have witnessed Ballinger's racial insensitivity firsthand.
"I recall overhearing her once brag that a creator was being 'canceled' for saying the N-word, (and if you think she went with N-word instead of hitting that hard 'R' then you haven't been paying attention) and that she would never be stupid enough to get caught doing something like that," Quioh claimed on her blog.
Ballinger has been a YouTube content creator since 2008, originally gaining notoriety as Miranda Sings, a childish character who wears poorly applied red lipstick and performs purposely bad covers of pop songs. Ballinger found success and garnered a large fan base largely made up of young YouTube users. She has since appeared on late-night talk shows, created and starred in her own Netflix series, and published two books.
The YouTube comedian has recently been in the news after a HuffPost investigation alleged that she fostered inappropriate and emotionally abusive relationships with fans as young as 13 years old. Over the past several weeks, former fans of Ballinger have publicly shared stories of inappropriate behavior that allegedly includes sexually explicit communications with them as minors. This included claims that she sent young fans nude photos and videos of fellow influencer and collaborator Trisha Paytas without her consent.
Paytas, who launched the Oversharing podcast with Ballinger earlier this year, denounced her collaborator in a 20–minute video.
"I don't stand by [Ballinger]," she said. "I'm embarrassed to be associated with her. I'm embarrassed for the fans that she messaged those to. That should never have happened."
Ballinger responded to the allegations in song, accompanying herself on the ukulele to deny that she had ever "groomed" young fans. In the June 28 apology video, she sings, "The only thing I've ever groomed is my two Persian cats / I'm not a groomer, just a loser / Who didn't understand I shouldn't respond to fans / And I'm not a predator even if a lot of you think so / Because five years ago I made a fart joke."
[This article has been updated to include comment from Ballinger's representatives about her "Single Ladies" video.]
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