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Blackswan Fatou reacts to 'bully' Leia, says 'shouldn't have stooped as low as her'

Trolls have been sending racist and hate messages to Fatou after a fan page claimed she was bullying Leia

Blackswan is a rookie K-pop girl group that debuted in October 2020. They were, in fact, the second-gen girl group, Rania that rebranded as Blackswan after many of the original members left. They were known for being one of the most inclusive groups as they had multi-national members. One of their members, Alexandra was the first K-pop idol of African descendants. And while K-pop artists are multi-national, they have mostly been Asian. Blackswan's current member Fatou is from Senegal and one of the few Black artists in South Korea. However, following rumors of her bullying Leia, she has been subject to racist and hate messages.

Last week, Brazilian-Japanese member Leia’s fanbase claimed that they had received messages from the idol’s family that she was being bullied by Fatou. They shared screenshots of messages that were supposedly between them and Leia’s family. At first, some fans didn’t believe the messages since they claimed that the messages were not written by a native Portuguese speaker. But since then, certain fans and trolls have been sending massive hate to Fatou on her social media along with racist phrases that have forced her to address the situation.

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Fatou responds to bullying allegations

In a very lengthy Twitter post, Fatou indirectly denied bullying Leia. She said that there had been a verbal fight between Leia and her and called her out for being manipulative. She claimed that Leia was narcissistic, gaslit other members, outright lied, would self-victimize herself and try to manipulate everyone. She brought up several instances like the time Leia disrespected Fatou’s family just because the latter got to meet her family while Leia couldn’t. She tried to get into Fatou’s individual promotional selfies and claimed that Fatou hated her when she was denied. 

Fatou also claimed that Leia once told her friend that she would ruin Blackswan and that she didn’t want to be in the group. She also said that Leia lied about her health and claimed that she had a slipped disc and took pills for her mental health because of the company and Fatou but apparently the causes were due to her time in Brazil. Fatou said that the last straw was Leia disrespecting her family which is why she exploded on October 25. Fatou said, “[Leia] kept denying everything over and over again, changing her words over and over again. I said a lot of harsh things which I regret doing so because I never should've stooped as low as her.”

Fatou added that it was unfair of Leia to throw her and Blackswan under the bus as they had been taking care of her and helping her practice. She also shared that Leia’s apologies felt fake as she would only apologize because she had to and then she would go and do the same thing again. Leia, on the other hand, has just said in a now-deleted tweet that she would reveal everything but she didn’t agree with the racism directed at Fatou. But many have pointed out that they saw Leia liking posts of her fans claiming Fatou is a bully.

Fans are divided over Fatou and Leia’s responses. Some say that they will wait for Leia’s story while others are firing back that they didn’t wait when haters were sending hate messages to Fatou over a fanbase’s claims. Some think that all of these incidents should have been kept private and the company should have handled the matter privately. Other fans are backing Fatou and saying that she has no reason to lie since she knows how precarious her position is in the industry due to her race. Meanwhile, some fans are still with Leia.

Fatou has been trending since her message on November 14. A user explained, “This is like what happened to T-ara and AOA incident. We should be neutral on this. Let's wait both parties' statement.” One fan said, “Dont even try to that “ima just stay neutral” shit cuz you only wanted to be neutral UNTIL fatou came out with her side. smd disrespectfully, now yall talking bout “why yall believe fatou so fast and not leia” LEIA HASNT SAID SHIT YET and yall was begging for fatou to say sum wtf.”

Another user felt this matter should have been handled privately, “Exactly my thoughts, we are not judges and this situation shouldn't even cause the dispand or one of the girls leaving the group. They need to work on themselves but keep it professionals, it's normal to fight and learn from it.” One user shared, “Im not gonna believe this #blackswan situation because why would fatou a darkskin black woman in a homogeneous country in Korea in an antiblack genre like kpop would jeopardize her whole career to bully leia mind you they’re very close it seems like fabrication.”

A fan commented, “Talked TOO much, had to justificate TOO much, this speech is not right at all... anyways, I'll not defend anyone but she didn't deny the bully, so I'll remain with leia.” Another user feels that regardless of the truth, fans shouldn’t be using the girls’ race as an excuse to send hate, “People using this mess to be racist to Fatou or to be xenophobic to Leia... y'all suck honestly.”

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