Gwen Stefani Draws Scrutiny for Claiming She's Japanese

By Daniel S. Levine

Gwen Stefani has faced criticism throughout her career for cultural appropriation. Her response to the issue in a new Allure interview raised more eyebrows, as she claimed she is Japanese. Stefani, 53, is not, but she declared she was multiple times in the interview.

The Voice coach's interview with Allure was timed for her new vegan beauty line, GXVE Beauty. The magazine asked her about her fragrance line Harajuku Lovers, which launched in 2008. Although it earned praise from the industry at the time, it was connected to the controversial imagery for her 2004 album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. The fragrance was packaged in bottles made to look like the Japanese and Japanese American backup dancers who accompanied her while she promoted that record. Allure asked Stefani what she learned from the backlash Harajuku Lovers faced, and the singer brought up how her father traveled between California and Japan because of his job at Yamaha. (Stefani previously mentioned this story in a Paper Mag interview in 2021.)

Stefani said her father would bring back stories about Japan that influenced her. After she went to Tokyo herself, she came to a realization. "I said, 'My God, I'm Japanese and I didn't know it,'" Stefani told Allure. "I am, you know." Stefani claimed there was an "innocence" to her relationship with Japanese culture and she is a "super fan."

"If [people are] going to criticize me for being a fan of something beautiful and sharing that, then I just think that doesn't feel right," Stefani said. "I think it was a beautiful time of creativity... a time of the ping-pong match between Harajuku culture and American culture." She continued to elaborate, adding that it "should be okay to be inspired by other cultures because if we're not allowed then that's dividing people, right?"

Stefani said she also identifies with the Hispanic and Latinx communities because she grew up in Anaheim, California. "The music, the way the girls wore their makeup, the clothes they wore, that was my identity," Stefani said. "Even though I'm an Italian American – Irish or whatever mutt that I am – that's who I became because those were my people, right?" Stefani also told the magazine multiple times that she is "a little bit of an Orange County girl, a little bit of a Japanese girl, a little bit of an English girl."

Allure journalist Jesa Marie Calaor and the magazine's social media associate were puzzled by Stefani's comments. They thought the singer may have misspoken, but she insisted she was Japanese multiple times. Stefani's representative later told Allure that Calaor "misunderstood what Stefani was trying to convey." The publication asked Stefani's team if she would be available to provide a follow-up statement or participate in a follow-up interview, but they declined.

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