The daughter of Eartha Kitt, the singer and actress who slayed the legendary cat woman role and who earned “sex kitten” status, is speaking out against reverse racism she’s suffered because of the color of her skin.
Kitt Shapiro, appeared on the Tamron Hall show and spoke candidly about the side-eyes she receives because people cast doubt on her claim of being Kitt’s daughter because of her light-skin complexion that could easily allow her to double as a white woman.
“We all know we’ve been victims of some type of trolling or nastiness online and people,” Shapiro said.
“They just assume that because I don’t, as I mentioned in the TikTok, look the way they think you should look then you can’t possibly be who you say you are. I truly think she was proud to be the parent of somebody that couldn’t be easily identified because she herself had been so stereotyped and so pigeonholed because of her skin color obviously.”
Shapiro says her mother was her true champion who was proud of her and often called her a “mutt” which is another way to say someone is mixed race. Kitt herself was mixed and encouraged Shapiro to embrace her ambiguity.
But an unsettling Facebook message caused Shapiro to confront someone who said she “couldn’t possibly” be Eartha Kitt’s child. The Facebook troll even took things a step further by suggesting that Kitt lied and must have adopted a baby.
That was the last straw for Shapiro.
“To which my response was when ‘Do you think a Black woman could have adopted a white baby first of all?” she expressed. “I don’t care how famous she was.”
Kitt wrote a memoir titled “Eartha & Kitt.”
Check out the full interview.
