Gwen Stefani is adamant she has done nothing wrong amid longstanding allegations of cultural appropriation.
Stefani famously performed with a group of dancers known as the Harajuku Girls as she launched herself as a solo artist in the early to mid-2000s, and went on to adopt Japanese street fashion for her own looks in a multitude of media appearances.
Critics have been calling out Stefani for profiting off Asian culture for years, but the singer has no regrets about her earlier career choices.
“If we didn’t buy and sell and trade our cultures in, we wouldn’t have so much beauty, you know?” she told Paper Magazine. “We learn from each other, we share from each other, we grow from each other. And all these rules are just dividing us more and more.”
Stefani went on to note that she has been fascinated with Japan since she was a girl, especially as her father would often speak of his travels to the nation while he was working as a Yamaha marketing executive.
And the 51-year-old would love to spend more time in Tokyo.
“I never got to have dancers with No Doubt. I never got to change costumes. I never got to do all of those fun girl things that I always love to do. So I had this idea that I would have a posse of girls – because I never got to hang with girls – and they would be Japanese, Harajuku girls, because those are the girls that I love,” she explained. “Those are my homies. That’s where I would be if I had my dream come true, I could go live there and I could go hang out in Harajuku.”
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