Sometimes diamonds are not a girl’s best friend — even for someone as iconic as Beyoncé.
In case you missed it, the 39-year-old singer and JAY-Z recently starred in the “About Love” campaign for Tiffany & Co., in which she sported the brand’s famed canary yellow diamond necklace. The promo (below) clearly pays homage to the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s, where Audrey Hepburn wore the jewelry item in the promotional images.
Queen Bey has become the first Black woman and fourth woman to ever wear the 128.54-carat stone — following Hepburn, Mary Whitehouse, and Lady GaGa.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CS5zbAXLiqx/
A post shared by Beyoncé (@beyonce)
Related: Beyonce’s Mom BLASTS Disney For Racism Over Black Is King!
However, many social media users are far from blinded over the history-making photo shoot. Many have called out the luxury jewelry company for still showcasing the item despite its widely-publicized and controversial history as a “blood diamond.” In case you didn’t know, the gem was discovered in the Kimberley mines in South Africa in 1877, where Black laborers were forced to work in terrible and dangerous conditions for little to no pay. It was later purchased and cut down by Charles Tiffany.
Blood diamonds mined in Africa have historically been rooted in conflict, often funding military actions against governments and thus leading to the deaths of many lives. So no wonder people have pointed out how problematic (and hypocritical) it is for Tiffany & Co. to have the diamond still in its possession, despite supposedly having a “zero-tolerance policy towards conflict diamonds.”
One Twitter user wrote in response to the campaign:
“I had to process Jay Z and Beyoncé ’s Tiffany’s campaign for just a minute before saying anything but how did no one see that the whole ‘first Black woman’ marketing angle on this is not doing what they think it’s doing when that s**t is a literal blood diamond!!!!”
Another commented:
“Okay so we can drag Tiffany for owning a blood diamond but I just want to say that yall only now know it’s a blood diamond when it’s Beyoncé wearing it and not when Audrey wore it or lady gaga. I digress…”
And a third shared:
“Beyoncé doing a Tiffany’s campaign wearing a blood diamond doesn’t sit well for her brand ESPECIALLY given her African influenced work in the past few years.”
While Beyoncé hasn’t spoken out about the backlash herself, a source close to the actress claimed to The Sun that she wore the gem without knowing its contentious backstory and was outraged once aware of the news:
“Beyonce is aware of the criticism and is disappointed and angry that she wasn’t made aware of questions about its history. She thought that every final detail had been vetted, but now she realizes that the diamond itself was overlooked.”
Despite the continued intense criticism, she still has someone in her corner. Her momma Tina Knowles-Lawson reportedly slammed the critics on Instagram, asking how many of them actually knew where their diamonds came from:
“How many of you socially conscious activist own diamonds? I thought so! Well guess what did you go to try to check to see where the diamond came from? Probably not. So when you guys get engaged you won’t have a diamond you gonna put on a sterling silver band and you better check out where it came from and the origin of where came from and why you add it check out the calls for the leather that you because they made it came from another country to ban and not buy diamonds right because your righteous!!”
She might as well be calling everyone a hypocrite! This is not even mentioning the fact that folks didn’t have this same amount of energy towards Lady G when she wore it to the 2019 Oscars.
But what are your thoughts on the situation, Perezcious readers? Let us know in the comments (below).
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