K Naomi has rejected accusations of colourism after an Instagram post comparing her daughters' complexions went viral. Here's what she said and why it struck a nerve.
K Naomi has defended a post about her daughters after critics accused her of colourism. Picture: Instagram, @knaomin
K Naomi has pushed back against accusations of colourism after a post about her two daughters’ complexions drew a wave of criticism online this week.
The media personality, TV presenter, influencer and model, whose full name is Keitumetse Naomi Phakathi, shared a photo of her daughters, Ama and Nethisa, saying how much she missed them.
The accompanying text said Ama is always playing outside but “looks darker” because Nethisa is “SO light”, adding that Nethisa looks exactly like her mother-in-law. She also compared Ama’s smile and nose to her own mother’s.
The backlash
When the post was reshared on X, critics accused her of colourism, which is discrimination or bias based on skin tone, and is especially sensitive in South Africa because of colonial and apartheid-era beauty hierarchies that privileged lighter skin in non-white communities.
Many questioned why Ama’s complexion needed explaining at all. One user wrote: “Nobody looked at this cute pic and thought, ‘Why is Ama so dark?'” Another, quoted by the same outlet, said: “As a dark-skinned woman who has gone through this all her life, this is colourism from a mother towards her own child! Yuck.”
K Naomi addressed the criticism on her Instagram Stories, rejecting the label and describing the post as a sentimental note about family resemblance.
“Apparently, I’m being called a colourist for posting a picture of my children and sharing how much they remind me of two significant women in my life,” she wrote.
She described her daughters as “two little girls with their own unique features”, and said the conversation had turned into one about colourism in a way that was “honestly beyond me”. She also accused critics of deliberately misreading the post “to fit their own negative narratives and projections”.
She also pointed to what she sees as a double standard, with criticism focused on the “darker” comment rather than the “SO light” one, and accused burner accounts of manufacturing controversy around her children.
Not her first social media storm
K Naomi has weathered online criticism before. In 2019, she deleted a tweet saying she “hated bipolar people”, which drew criticism for using a serious mental health condition as an insult.
She apologised, saying she was venting about inconsistent behaviour and acknowledging her own history with depression. She has also defended earlier remarks about HIV/AIDS by citing prevalence statistics and personal experience.
