Lupita Nyong'o reveals she 'prayed' for lighter skin when she was younger

Actor opens up about the dangers of colourism

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Actor Lupita Nyong’o has warned of the dangers of colourism, revealing she longed for lighter skin when she was younger.

“I had a sister who was lighter-skinned, and people would coo over her in ways they wouldn’t at me, so I definitely internalised that,” the Black Panther star told The Sunday Times Style.

Nyong’o went on to recall being mocked for the colour of her skin as a child.

“In school I experienced some teasing and, of course, on TV you’re seeing light skin and it’s all over the magazines, so all those things subconsciously programme you to think that light is right," she said. “I definitely wished for lighter skin. I tried what I could to make it so - prayer and stuff like that.”

The 12 Years a Slave actor added that the lack of representation in fairytales, such as Cinderella and Rapunzel, affected her when she was growing up.

“You know, they were all white characters. I would read those over and over again, but I didn’t see myself in those books," she said. "Subconsciously, there is that conditioning.”

It is only with hindsight that she has realised how problematic some of the children’s books she read were in terms of their presentation of race, she added.

“When there were characters that were supposed to look like me, it was Enid Blyton and it was the golliwogs,” she said, referencing the once popular toys that featured in the children author's books which are now widely seen as representing negative racial stereotypes.

“I actually didn’t know they were a representation of me,” she added. “I thought golliwogs were figments of Enid Blyton’s imagination – they were bumbling, kind of idiotic. It was only later when I grew up and looked at them, I was like, ‘Oh dear.’ ”

It was experiences like these that prompted Nyong’o to write her own children’s book, Sulwe, which is a picture book about a young girl who wishes for her dark skin to be lighter.

“The people that most need to hear it are kids who haven’t yet been served their value by the world," she said.