YouTube star Colleen Ballinger — known to followers as Miranda Sings — had an “honest conversation” and apologized to fans on Tuesday, May 12, for seemingly racist remarks she made in a video from 14 years ago that has recently resurfaced. The 33-year-old uploaded a 13-minute video titled “Addressing Everything” and admitted that the characters her and her sister portrayed in the old video were Latinx women and “completely based on racial stereotypes.”
“It is not funny, and it is completely hurtful. I am so ashamed and embarrassed that I ever thought this was okay,” she said. “I was a sheltered teenager who was stupid and ignorant and clearly extremely culturally insensitive. Racial stereotypes are not funny. They’re not a joke and should never be joked about.”
The internet star then admitted that she deleted the video years later, not “out of fear of getting caught,” but because she didn’t want anyone to find it and be “hurt” by it.
Colleen then went on to address another controversy in a video from 12 years ago, where she talked “very negatively” about an overweight woman who sat next to her on a flight. She said that she went back and watched the clip and was “appalled and shocked” that the comments came out of her mouth.
“That is not the woman I am today,” she promised. “I am such a huge advocate for women and women’s bodies and loving every shape and every size and the fact that I talked negatively about someone who was overweight is absolutely disgusting to me.”
Another issue that the YouTuber addressed was the “insensitive way” that she recounted a situation when she was younger in which a dog had to be put down after it bit her. She decided to discuss this situation again because she admitted that “still to this day as a 33-year-old woman” she feels guilt for the dog’s death.
“To anyone and everyone who was hurt or offended by the statements I made when I was younger, I am so, so sorry. I hope you all can see that the person I am today is so far from the person I was a decade ago,” Colleen said.
Before concluding the video, the social media influencer also addressed an ongoing controversy that started after a 17-year-old fan from Ireland alleged that Colleen had not paid him for content that he wrote and shared after being given access to her Miranda Sings Twitter account. He also claimed that she sent him her bras and underwear in the mail. In her video, Colleen explained that the pair of underwear she sent was new, unused and part of a giveaway that she did during a livestream.
“It was a big joke within the fandom,” she explained. “In my mind at the time, this was no different than all the other weird stuff I send to my fans as a joke. Now in hindsight, I see how completely stupid of me. I should have never sent that.”
As for the Twitter account, Colleen explained that the fan asked to assist her with running the Miranda Sings account since it had been inactive, so she allowed him access to the profile for one day as a “test run,” and he ended up posting a tweet that was “problematic.” She denied his claims that he had run the account for years.
“I knew better than to let someone else tweet for me. I should have reviewed closely every single thing that was going to come from Miranda’s mouth. I let him know that I loved him, he did a great job. It was my fault, not his,” she said. “I publicly apologized for the tweet. I deleted the tweets that were posted that were not posted from me.”
Colleen ended her video by offering one last apology and promised viewers that she would “continue to learn” from her mistakes.
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