‘I WAS URGED TO BLEACH MY SKIN’ X Factor’s Alexandra on ‘racism in industry’
X FACTOR winner Alexandra Burke claims that racism is so rife in the music industry, she was told to bleach her skin if she wanted success.
The singer, 31, was warned that being black would hold her back unless she ditched her natural look. Speaking yesterday in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests, she told how the vile comments from people in the industry have tarnished her time in the spotlight. Alexandra said: “When I first won The X Factor at 19 I got told, ‘Because you’re black, you are going to have to work 10 times harder than a white artist because of the colour of your skin.’
“You can’t have braids, you can’t have an afro, you can’t have anything that basically is my identity. You have to have hair that appeals to white people. “I was only 19 years old. There’s only so much you can understand at 19 when your life has completely changed overnight. That was quite hard to digest.”
She added: “I got told to bleach my skin. And that was something I refused to do because it is absurd to me that somebody could even say to someone, ‘Bleach your skin so you could look whiter.’ Still to this moment, it breaks my heart that I was told that.”
After winning The X Factor in 2008, Alexandra went on to have a string of hits.
But she admitted: “If it wasn’t for the love that I have for music, I definitely wouldn’t be in this industry.” Former footballer Rio Ferdinand also spoke out yesterday
DAILY STAR SUNDAY, June 21, 2020 about racism. The ex-England ace, 41, is calling on Government to tackle the issue with education in schools. Black players including Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford are pushing to stamp out racism in the sport, but Rio, inset, thinks that won’t be enough.
He said: “These guys are at the forefront. The problem is, it’s not just going to be the players who are going to be able to make change. It needs to be a movement. It can’t just be campaigns. “We’ve seen far too often that different charities do some fly-by campaigns. Their intentions are great, but they’re not sustained. They don’t make change over a long period of time.” Rio added: “Education has to be the real foundation. This has to be in the curriculum. The Government has to get behind it.
“These players need to be at the forefront of it. And side by side next to them needs to be the big broadcasters, the FA, the Premier League, all the clubs sitting together pushing out the same message.
“So these next generation of children aren’t confused, it needs to be from one centre point, all singing from the same hymn sheet.”