Kelly Rowland, Destiny's Child founding member and superstar
songstress, once had insecurity issues with her skin tone. That’s funny, cos I
have always loved Kelly’s chocolate complexion. I can remember when I first saw
the "No, No, No" video from Destiny’s Child back in 1997, I fell in love with
her immediately. In fact, I was always in awe of Kelly’s beauty in all their
early videos that I never knew Beyonce was the lead singer of the group. I
guess Kelly had self-esteem issues to start with; the skin
tone thing is just a manifestation of the low self esteem she had as a young
girl. But, since that Motivation video dropped, she has definitely been
appearing more confident...she found herself, and fell in love with herself.
In a recent interview at the Essence Black Women of
Hollywood event, she was asked about her skin tone, and she said-
“You know, I had great women in my life to help me overcome
that. I remember I went through a period where I didn't embrace my
chocolatiness. I don’t know if that’s a word,
but I didn't embrace my chocolate lifestyle Just being a chocolate,
lovely brown skin girl and being proud of that. I remember being out in the sun
and I was trying to shield myself from the sun and Beyonce’s mom (Tina Knowles)
said, ‘Are you crazy?’ She said ‘You are absolutely gorgeous’ and she just told
me how beautiful I was, and how rare chocolate is and how gorgeous the skin is,
all of this stuff. And I was just like ‘Yeah!’ Like a light went off and my
mother had me sitting in the sun a little more, just to be a little more
chocolate.
I am happy she found herself and has embraced herself as
she is. I don’t think she is the only one with the issue, there are millions of black
females worldwide bleaching their skin just so they can be lighter. I
remember telling an old girlfriend of mine that I am more attracted to
brown-skinned girls, and she got off the couch and was like ‘what are you doing
here then?’ I had totally forgotten she was light-skinned. I don’t look down on
any skin tone, beauty is beauty regardless of hue, but I am just personally
more attracted to brown...that bronze look gets me all the time. Lol!