Zoe Kravitz Admits She Didn't Always Identify With Black Culture

Zoe Kravitz Struggled With Eating Disorders And Racial Identity

We were thrilled to see our girl Zoe Kravitz on the cover of NYLON Magazine but kind of disappointed to discover that she wasn’t always so comfortable in her own skin.

Check out a few excerpts below:

On the root of her insecurities:

 Growing up as a self-described “chubby, awkward brown girl around a bunch of blonde girls” led to struggles with bulimia and anorexia in her teens. Her famous father’s supermodel girlfriends, and the fact that her mom was “the most beautiful woman in the world,” she says, didn’t help matters. Such self-loathing came from “tons of things,” she continues,“including being human.”

 

On the dynamics of her racial identity: 

As one of few black kids in her predominately white school, she remembers saying things like, “I’m just as white as y’all,” to her classmates. “I identified with white culture, and I wanted to fit in,” she says. “I didn’t identify with black culture, like, I didn’t like Tyler Perry movies, and I wasn’t into hip-hop music. I liked Neil Young.” But as time went on, her views shifted. “Black culture is so much deeper than that,” she says, “but unfortunately that is what’s fed through the media. That’s what people see. That’s what I saw. But then I got older and listed to A Tribe Called Quest and watched films with Sidney Poitier, and heard Billie Holiday and Nina Simone. I had to un-brainwash myself. It’s my mission, especially as an actress.  

 

SMH… We can’t believe Zoe equated Tyler Perry movies with blackness! Seeeeeeeeee, this is why we all suffer from Madea’s success.

Nylon/ Bella Howard