Kenya Barris Addresses Colorism Backlash In #BlackAF, Opens Up About Divorce: Somehow, Some F**ked Up Way, It Was Announced On My Birthday

April 30, 2020 by Demi Lobo in TV with 0 Comments

Kenya Barris with wife Dr. Rainbow Edwards-Barris

Kenya Barris Addresses Colorism Backlash In #BlackAF, Opens Up About Divorce: Somehow, Some Fked Up Way, It Was Announced On My Birthday**

“Blackish” creator Kenya Barris, 45 set social media ablaze with the release of his new Netflix show “Black AF.”

The topic of color-ism swirled the Internet and during an episode of T.I.’s podcast expediTIously, he addresses the claims, and also talks about his divorce from his wife Dr. Raina “Rainbow” Edwards-Barris.

Tracee Ellis Ross, Kenya Barris

Earlier this year, unconfirmed rumors began to circulate that Kenya was dating “Black-ish” star Tracee Ellis Ross. While he doesn’t address this, he tells T.I. that is currently going through a divorce right now with his wife Dr. Raina “Rainbow” Edwards-Barris:

“I’m going through a divorce right now. Who knows what’s going to happen with that but…It is part of life. When I was growing up, we didn’t have—I never saw Cliff and Clair argue. If you look at sitcoms and our stories, we’re supposed to be okay. But 52% of marriages don’t work. And the notion of understanding—We didn’t know about therapy or really understand it. We didn’t know about really having the church or other married friends that would have given us the skeleton to make it in another sort of way. So I feel like talking about that to a generation of people who might be going through what I’m going through, it makes them say, ‘Hey, there’s other people out there like me. Maybe we can make it. Maybe we can’t.’ I just want to be as real with my sh*t as possible. It is the toughest thing I’ve ever been through in my life.”

Rainbow and Kenya Barris

He says some kind of way the divorce was announced on his birthday:

“Somehow, some f*cked up way, it got announced on my birthday I didn’t file on my birthday but it got announced on my birthday. I don’t know that people care about me getting divorced. I’m not anybody, especially at that point. And all of a sudden it’s in the papers as I’m getting off the plane coming from Atlanta. I have my wife calling me. I have my daughter who’s a sophomore at USC calling me. I have my daughter, who’s a senior in high school, calling me because her friends are talking about it. I’m just not used to…it’s a different world than I ever expected and I’m trying to experience it with the audience in real time. This is all happening to me as it’s happening on air.”

Part 1. “We didn’t know about therapy or really understand it…” #KenyaBarris talks about divorce. pic.twitter.com/Daoe5RWeCd

— theJasmineBRAND (@thejasminebrand) April 30, 2020

Part 2. “All of a sudden it’s in the papers”…#KenyaBarris says he filed for divorce and somehow it got announced on his birthday. pic.twitter.com/wXwkrBHSPN

— theJasmineBRAND (@thejasminebrand) April 30, 2020

Kenya Barris addresses claims of ‘Colorism’ used in the show:

“This is based on my family. She’s playing a version of my wife whose bi-racial. My wife is bi-bacial, she’s playing a version of that character. My kids, what Rashida and I could produce, looks like those kids, who are amazing. And so I feel like, you know I think the sometimes we just need to, like I talked about like informing ourselves more. I think everyones experience and opinion in terms of, you know color-ism are real, and I understand that. But if you just dug a little bit under the surface, you would understand that this is based upon, biographical, this was based on my family, and I was trying to duplicate a version of what my family was. I think that would have calmed a lot of the natives, you know what I’m saying but at the same time, it’s important that it didn’t, cause’ it speaks to the ideas that there is so much color-ism in the world, and it shows important this is to people so I take the good with bad. The ignorance I have a little bit of a problem with. But I take opinions good with the bad, because if you listen to any of them you gotta listen to all of them.”