Blake Lively defends 'LA face with Oakland booty' Instagram post

'I was celebrating my body', actress says

Blake Lively has addressed the controversy which erupted after she used the lyric “LA face with an Oakland booty” in an Instagram post.

Back in May, Lively shared a photo of herself at the Cannes film festival along with the lyrics from Sir Mix-A-Lot’s hit 1992 song “Baby Got Back”. The post soon sparked a debate about the lyrics of the song, which were originally intended as a celebration of black women’s bodies, being used by a privileged white woman.

Some commenters criticised the 28-year-old for being out of touch, while others defended the Gossip Girl actress saying she didn’t write the rap lyrics herself.

Lively kept the post up and stayed quiet on the matter, however, on Tuesday she was asked about it on the promotional tour for her new film The Shallows.

Lively said she “didn’t mean to offend anybody” with the image and caption and instead chose to share the post as a celebration of her body.

“It’s just about celebrating women’s bodies and that’s what I was doing,” she told Sirius XM. “I never want to hurt anyone’s feelings or upset anyone. I was celebrating my body.”

The actress also raised the point that she had Sir Mix-A-Lott’s approval during the fiasco.

The 52-year-old rapper said back in May: “I wrote this song not as a battle between the races. I wrote the song because […] I wanted all these big magazines to kind of open up a little bit and say, ‘Wait a minute, this may not be the only beautiful’.”

He also said he, personally, took Lively’s post to indicate that “the norm has changed, that the beautiful people have accepted out idea of beautiful”.

“I think it’s almost a nod of approval, and that was what I wanted. I wanted our idea of beautiful to be accepted," he said.