'Drag Race Down Under' Star Issues Apology for Blackface, Cultural Appropriation

"RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under" contestant Scarlet Adams has issued an apology over photos that have surfaced showing Adams performing Blackface and mocking other cultures, according to Pink News.

Drag queen Felicia Foxx, an Indigenous Australian, shared a clutch of these photos on Instagram, warning in the caption that "some of this content can be distressing, I deeply feel for every single culture that is disrespected in these pictures.

"It makes me sick to my core to see numerous people in the LGBT+ community who are profiting off of making a mockery and disrespecting peoples cultures.

"It makes me furious seeing my culture being dismantled, disregarded and shit on."

Particularly distressing, Adams had allegedly used derogatory language about Indigenous Australians in the past. In one image, Foxx points out that Adams is in Blackface "with two blacked-out teeth on 26 January, Invasion Day."

Invasion Day is also known as Australia Day, which marks the British colonizers' 1788 arrival in Australia. A growing movement of Australians have pushed for Australia Day as a moment to remember the brutal violence and oppression the colonized Indigenous peoples suffered.

Adams responded with a re-share of a June 2020 apology claiming to be "young" and "ignorant" and "stupid." She wrote, "It's important to show that those kinds of actions are condemnable and to bring it to the forefront of my feed during the current political climate... Yep, that happened and I won't try to deny it."

Another statement dated "2021" said, "In recent days, I have heard stories repeated about my past.

"Despite this being a story I am deeply ashamed of, and something I had tried to forget. I've come to realise in recent years that taking responsibility and admitting mistakes is an important learning experience.

"There is no way to sugar-coat it, when I was a teenager roughly eight years ago I performed in Blackface/cultural appropriation," she continued.

"I was young and I was ignorant. I am no longer that person."

Adams added, "I know I will never understand what it's like to be a person of colour. But I have been hurt before and to think that I made someone else feel that way is an unfathomable thing."