Doja Cat (aka the “female Matty Healy“) has been making some provocative moves over the past year as she rolled out and promoted her new album Scarlet, but even she knows when she has taken things a little too far. The “Balut” rapper posted an apology on her Instagram Story for offending some fans by wearing a T-shirt with one of the alt-right’s most popular figures on it.
Doja had posted a photo of the T-shirt on her Instagram grid, but after being informed that it bore an image of Sam Hyde, a comedian who has been accused of being a neo-Nazi, she cropped and reposted it, removing the portion that allowed fans to see Hyde’s photo on the shirt. It initially appeared that she would not make any comment about it.
In a post on a fan account’s Twitter, though, an alleged post on Doja’s Instagram Story wrote, “You guys, I literally had no idea who that man was. I got that shirt from a thrift sale. I thought it looked cool cause he was holding a gun and I had a single called ‘Gun’ coming next month. Sorry.”
Unfortunately, it looks like this might be a fake post created by the fan account (which is exactly the sort of weirdo behavior Doja’s spent the last year railing against). Some eagle-eyed fans reported that it certainly looks like a photoshop, while others seemingly took it at face value.
why she should’ve kept this bc i totally believe her i literally had 0 clue who that man was either sooooooooo🤷🤷🤷 and shes always been one to double down not apologize , so i think its sincere https://t.co/0uFUW6LRYQ
— spring (@badgirlspring) October 11, 2023
One thing that this incident certainly highlights is how much more fraught public life has become in recent years. Even something as simple and seemingly innocuous as wearing a t-shirt can be seen as a political statement, even if inadvertently. For what it’s worth, Doja isn’t the first star to make this mistake, and she probably won’t be the last. One can only hope that hateful figures and their ideologies can be swept back into the shadows where they belong.
