Chet Hanks has a message for Adele. As the singer handles the fall-out from being accused of cultural appropriation, the 30-year-old son of Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson is asking that she “hit his line ASAP” with an over-the-top Instagram video. Tuesday, Hanks shared footage of himself rocking out to Adele’s 2011 song “Set Fire in the Rain,” adding a line of Jamaican flag emojis and writing, “PLEASE SOMEONE TELL ADELE HIT MY LINE ASAP !!!!!!!!!!!!I NEED TO TALK TO HER ABOUT SOMETHING.”
Hanks’ message came just one day after Adele, 32, faced backlash for an Instagram post in which she is wearing a Jamaican flag bikini top and Bantu knots, a traditional African hairstyle to honor the Notting Hill Carnival, which was canceled this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. “Happy what would be Notting Hill Carnival my beloved London,” she wrote of the event, which celebrates the Caribbean culture in the U.K. and has been moved online this year to promote social distancing.
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The Grammy winner was criticized for wearing the Bantu knots, with one follower commenting, “Black women are discriminated against for wearing cultural hairstyles like bantu knots and locs but white people are not, that’s not fair and that’s why people are pissed off.”
Others, including Naomi Campbell and Alexandra Burke, have defended Adele. Burke wrote, “As a Jamaican girl myself, my girl has grown up in black culture. People forget she’s from Tottenham. She probably eats jerk chicken all the time like all of us. All I’m saying is the girl looked good, leave her. Allow her, man.” While Adele hasn’t spoken formally of the backlash, she seems to be taking the criticism lightly, writing in the comments of Brandy and Monica’s Verzuz Instagram Live, “Wah Gwaan! Yow gyal, yuh look good enuh!”
Hanks has been accused of culturally appropriating when it comes to Jamaican people in the past. Earlier this year, the actor was criticized for speaking Patois while praising his father before the Forrest Gump actor was presented with the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the 2020 Golden Globe Awards. Hanks doubled down on his accent, writing in a follow-up video that the internet had “gone mad,” captioning the clip with a row of Jamaican flag emojis and writing, “RESPECT TO MI #ISLAND!”
