Amber Rose has a thorn in her side: MSNBC presenter Joy Reid.
The former reality TV star fired back at Reid’s criticism of her speech on the opening day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Monday, in which Reid addressed the black audience directly and called Rose “racially ambiguous.”
“I don’t want to say she’s black because she said she’s not, so I don’t want to say that black woman,” Reid said, alluding to Rose having identified herself as both white and black over the years.
“This woman, regardless of race, said she was not black, but (the RNC) brought in someone whose entire career was based on black culture.”
Who is Amber Rose? Model who once condemned Trump now speaks at the RNC
Reid added: “I don’t know anyone who takes political cues from Amber Rose, but if you do, you should do your own research because she may not have done it thoroughly enough.”
“Hi @JoyAnnReid I never said I wasn’t black. I said I identify as biracial. I will not disparage my white father to make you feel more comfortable. Stop being a race baiter, your president does enough race baiting for all of us,” Rose wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.
USA TODAY has reached out to MSNBC representatives for comment.
In her speech at the convention, Rose addressed the issue of race, saying, “Donald Trump and his supporters don’t care if you’re black, white, gay or straight, it’s all about love. And that’s where it hit me. These are my people, this is where I belong.”
Rose is a rapper and model. She has appeared on several reality TV shows, including “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” “Dancing With the Stars,” and “America’s Next Top Model,” and also hosted her own talk show, “The Amber Rose Show,” which ran for one season in 2016.
Candace Owens calls Amber Rose’s speech the “highlight of the evening”
Conservative political commentator Candace Owens defended Rose in Tuesday’s episode of her podcast “Candace.”
“It’s understandable that people suddenly reacted and asked, ‘What is Amber Rose doing here?'” Owens said. “That spoke to a lot of people. Her speech was a highlight of the evening.”
Owens mentioned that she had spoken to Rose and continued, “She’s really struggling with this terrible limbo phase right now: She realizes her friends on the left don’t want her anymore because, God forbid, they’re wearing a MAGA hat, but then her potential friends on the right are scouring her pages and saying, ‘Ha, ha, ha, look at this girl – she’s conservative? She’s supposed to be on stage?'”
“Let’s just not do that. Let’s just press pause for a second and give her the space to learn,” Owens said.
Social media reactions to Amber Rose at the RNC
However, many Republicans criticized Rose for her past involvement in founding a protest movement against rape culture and victim blaming, as well as her vocal support for abortion and her pro-LGBTQ+ stance.
The posts on X, formerly Twitter, contain both support and criticism of Rose, but there were also some who took the opportunity to respond with humor.
Here is a compilation of some of these posts:
The RNC dedicating its first night to “diversity” is as much of a hassle as my daughter eating her vegetables first. It’s not that she enjoys them, she just wants to get it over with so no one bothers her with them later. Amber Rose is simply top of the line when it comes to broccoli.
— @TheCoreyRichardson on Threads. Follow me there. (@vexedinthecity) July 16, 2024
It was a really smart move to send Amber Rose to the convention as a speaker.
I never thought I would see the day when a woman with a shaved head and a tattoo on her forehead would become the speaker of the RNC. She did a great job.— Drew Hastings (@drewhastings) July 16, 2024
Who is Amber Rose? Meet the model who spoke at the Republican National Convention
Last week, Rose announced that she would deliver an RNC speech in Milwaukee.
“It’s true! I’m speaking at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee #MAGA,” Rose posted on X. The 40-year-old mother, who shares Sebastian “Bash” Taylor with rapper Wiz Khalifa, was on the convention organizers’ list of speakers.
Rose, who famously had a long-term relationship with Kanye West, expressed her support for Trump earlier this year in a video in which she donned the Trump supporters’ signature red “Make America Great Again” hat.
According to a post on the official website of the TV channel Oxygen, Rose appeared in the documentary “Light Girls” in 2015 and discussed her experiences with racism and colorism.
“My family feels like they are superior or better than African Americans because ‘we are Creole’ and ‘we have a culture,’ and that is something I have struggled with most of my life,” she said in the documentary, according to Oxygen.
Contributors: Jolan Kruse, Victoria Moorwood, USA TODAY Network; KiMi Robinson, USA TODAY
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Amber Rose slams MSNBC’s Joy Reid for criticizing RNC speech
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