“I Tried To Bleach My Skin” – Tiwa Savage recounts

April 18, 2021April 19, 2021 Empire

In an interview with Allure Magazine, Nigerian singer and songwriter, Tiwa Savage recounted how difficult it was to blend in with her white folks and how she considered bleaching her skin at age 14.

The multiple award-winning singers opened up on the difficulties and struggle she went through accepting who she is. She disclosed how difficult it was as a child, to blend in with her white friends. “I was always insecure about being dark,” she said

Tiwa recounted, “I actually did try to bleach my skin when I was about, I think, 14, 15…Even now, on my back I have patches… My mom was cleaning my room and saw the cream that I used to mix with lemons. She wasn’t even angry. It was more her disappointment. So I stopped, but I was always insecure about being dark.”

She said her perspective changed when she started gaining attention and building her career. “When I started my career I wasn’t embracing who I was fully yet because I was just trying to crack into the market,” she says. “My first two singles were very American and it wasn’t very African. But then, as time went on, I just started seeing how powerful my platform was and how mothers would say, ‘My little girl really looks up to you.’”

Following her platform set up to motivate younger people, Tiwa said she doesn’t feel pressure to appear to be something she is not while disclosing that she hasn’t put on the foundation in two years. She went as far as insisting that blemishes are not edited out of her photos, likewise on set, she makes sure she looks “as natural as I am in real life”.

“I have a platform and I’m digging more into my responsibility for younger people. And I feel like there’s so much pressure now and it’s going to get even worse with social media and there needs to be a balance. There need to be some people that are not too perfect. I know we want to look good. I don’t want to be out there looking jacked up, but I also want to look relatable” she opined.