L’Oréal Model Clara Amfo Lends Support To Munroe Bergdorf
Radio 1 DJ Clara Amfo, who was part of the L’Oréal True Match campaign last year, has come out in support of Munroe Bergdorf with a post on Instagram which suggests she has cut ties with the company.
Bergdorf was fired from L’Oréal’s True Match campaign (which supposedly champions diversity) after everyone’s least favourite newspaper, the Daily Mail, picked up on a Facebook status in which she spoke out about white supremacy following the Charlottesville atrocities.
There has been widespread outrage since L’Oréal announced their decision, with outlets including Dazed, the Huffington Post, the Independent, Broadly, Huck Magazine, The Pool, and MiC publishing supportive op-eds, and the hashtag #IStandWithMunroe trending. However, Amfo appears to be the first True Match model to publicly lend her support to Bergdorf.
In her Instagram post she wrote: “Not even a week ago I was proud to announce that I was to be in the same campaign as Munroe. A trans woman of colour who @lorealmakeup hired to sell make up because of who she is. Who she is, a woman who wrote a nuanced post on institutional racism and white supremacy in relation to Charlottesville and how the foundations of those heinous ideals trickle in to every facet of our society.
The post went on: “A newspaper took her post out of context and span it as ‘a rant’ 🙄 with the most basic of dog whistle politics to rally people against her. She has now been dropped from the campaign because L’Oreal feel that she is “at odds with our values”…..If she’s not ‘worth it’ anymore, I guess I’m not either. #IStandWithMunroe”.
Amfo signed onto the True Match campaign in 2016, and was part of their launch which featured 23 stories behind 23 inspirational individuals.
In her video for the campaign she explained how she had struggled in the past to find the right make-up for her skintone: “Going shopping for make-up with my friends is always a fun experience, I think it’s one of those things that kind of bond girls… Lipsticks, lipglosses, no problem, nail polishes, I had a million colours. Finding the right foundation was always a little bit tricky ’cause I just found that when it came to what was avilable shade-wise I could never found something that matched me 100%.
I would say I’ve found my True Match today. Ultimately I think that true confidence comes from within but we all have those days when we wake up in the mirror and you can have all the confidence in the world and some days you just need that extra boost and so a bit of foundation doesn’t hurt anyone. On a good day a bit of foundation can make me walk into my studio feeling like a boss… I like that we are all worth it, because we are.”
In an emotional interview with Channel 4 News yesterday Bergdorf explained how she had been struggling to cope with the levels of abuse she was experiencing. She followed up with a Facebook post: “I woke up physically shaking. I’ve had countless people threatening to find and murder me. I’ve had rape threats. People calling my phone and breathing deeply then laughing and people trying to hack all my social channels.
I’ve been called eveything under the sun, from an ‘ugly tranny ape’ to ‘nigger’ over and over and over again, every three seconds for two days straight. It’s been unavoidable to the point where I haven’t been able to leave the house.”
In a statement, L’Oréal said: “L’Oreal supports diversity and tolerance towards all people irrespective of their race, background, gender and religion.
“The L’Oreal Paris True Match campaign is a representation of these values and we are proud of the diversity of the ambassadors who represent this campaign.
“We believe that the recent comments by Munroe Bergdorf are at odds with those values, and as such we have taken the decision to end the partnership with her.”
