Ice Spice has said she “never really cared” about the furore surrounding Matty Healy’s appearance on a podcast where the hosts made comments about her racial identity.
During an appearance on the Adam Friedland Show podcast, the presenters joked that the rapper, who is of Dominican descent, was an Inuit Spice Girl and imitated Chinese and Hawaiian accents while The 1975 frontman Healy laughed.
Following a backlash, the episode was removed from Spotify and Apple Music and Healy apologised to the music artist “multiple times”.
Speaking to Rolling Stone about the controversy, Ice Spice said: “I actually was late as f*** to that.
“I didn’t know about it until like a month after or something like that.
“He apologised multiple times, but I didn’t realise how big of a deal it was to other people.
“I feel like people just wanted something to be mad about, I guess.
“I wasn’t angry or sad or anything. I was just kind of confused. I never really cared about that.”
The 24-year-old rapper, known for songs including Munch (Feelin U’) and Boy’s A Liar Pt 2 featuring PinkPantheress, said she has received “a lot of hate” in her career.
She said: “Throughout my entire career, I don’t think I’ve ever had a moment of strictly praise.
“I think, through it all, there was always a lot of hate”, she said.
“And I kind of appreciate that, because I find that when people are only love, they’re not as real.
“I don’t dwell on how people are perceiving me, whether it’s negative or positive, because that’s really what you sign up for when you put yourself out there on a public platform.
“It’s for people to make their opinions about you.”
Speaking about the hateful comments she said: “It is very hard, actually, because I have a smart-ass mouth.
“My parents always called me a smart-ass growing up.
“I also troll back, but I have to lay off that a little bit, because it’s not nice.”
Reflecting on the pressure female artists face in the industry, she added: “We do live in a misogynistic world where it’s, like, you have to be breathtakingly hot to get certain opportunities.
“I was born as a woman and raised as a woman, so I only know this lifestyle, but I could just imagine how easy it is for guys.
“I am very jealous when the men on my team get to sleep an extra five f****** hours because they don’t have glam.”
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