Doja Cat responds to comments mocking a photo of her natural hair texture: 'Let's stop'
Doja Cat's hair is making headlines again, and the rapper has an important message for people who have mocked her natural hair texture.
On Friday, she shared a snippet of her new song, "Masc," which releases April 5, along with the track's promotional art on Instagram. The image is a high-definition, zoomed-in photo of the back of the singer's blond head. A day later, she took to Instagram Live to respond to some of the comments made under the post.
According to screen recordings shared by @Popcrave and @theshaderoom, Doja said, “I’m seeing a consistent pattern in my comments section of people saying is my hair pubic hair? Is it carpet? Or is it sheep’s wool? And it's not even questions. Some people are being like, that's what it is."
She added, "People comparing my hair to sheep and pubes and carpet and popcorn ... Like, we gotta move forward. Let’s move forward. Let’s grow. Let’s stop."
"You guys gotta get on that not comparing 4C hair texture to like public hair," she told her fans. Type 4C hair is characterized by tight, springy, coils and ringlets.
Comments on Doja's song teaser post have been turned off.
In a recording shared by @Doja HQ, the “Paint the Town Red” singer said in the Instagram Live that she was "struggling deeply with recording this" because "I don't like to make videos of myself" being serious. She'd recorded the same video explaining her thoughts on the issue "over and over" before ultimately deciding to start a livestream.
"I just need to get this ... off my chest," she said.
One X user, @lolm3gan, explained this is a problem that "black people face daily and it’s hard to communicate that with her majority white fan base.
Musician Ekela commented under The Shade Room's post: "Doja, why can’t you straight up say that people need to stop making racist remarks when it comes to black hair? Why are you speaking in code?"
"Idk why people are so comfortable having opinions on (people of color's) hair to begin with," user matchawithsoy wrote in a Reddit thread about Doja's Instagram Live. "The amount of times someone has touched my hair without consent, assumed its natural texture, etc is baffling."
According to People and Complex, in an August 2022 Instagram Live, Doja debuted a bold buzzcut and explained that wearing her natural hair became a “nightmare,” inspiring her to nix her long hair.
"What is the use of having hair if you're not going to (expletive) wear it out? I don't even sport it, so I'm shaving it off. There's no point,” Doja said. “I've never felt so (expletive) happy, like ... it's very funny how much of an effect taking my hair off my head has positively influenced me.”
A hairstylist weighs in:How well does Beyonce's Cécred work on highly textured hair?
Doja Cat deactivated her Instagram earlier this month: 'Getting (to) be too much'
The musician's fraught relationship with her social media followers seemed to come to a head earlier this month when Doja deactivated her Instagram account. "I’m not really feeling this anymore,” she wrote in a now-deleted post, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
"This is getting (to) be too much. The way I’m spoken to on here and treated makes me have (expletive) up thoughts," she added. "Please watch how you talk to and about people on the internet. Bye.”
"Masc" appears to be one of the songs on the upcoming deluxe version of Doja's 2023 record "Scarlet," which she revealed will be called "S2: Claude Frollo," per her interview with the Therapy Gecko podcast that released in February.
She will also headline Coachella later this month along with Lana Del Rey and Tyler, the Creator.
Contributing: Edward Segarra