Fans thought Instagram’s Emma Hallberg was black. Now she’s accused of ‘blackfishing’
A tour of Emma Hallberg’s popular Instagram shows photo after pretty photo of the 19-year-old model pouting for the camera, her lush, full lips shiny and tinted, her heavy, dark eyebrows expertly penciled.
In some of the photos her black hair is wavy, in some she wears her hair straight.
Until just a few days ago, some of her 245,000 followers thought she was black or mixed race. That is until someone posted a photo of the Swedish model with lighter-colored skin and straight hair. Now she’s being “accused of pretending to be black to get followers,” People magazine reports.
“You’d be forgiven for thinking that Hallberg could be black, or mixed-race, or at the very least a woman of color,” wrote The Daily Beast. “Her skin tone and hair seem to suggest a nonwhite background ...
“In one photo, she also credits a wig/hair extension company, Ali Grace Hair, for her luscious locks — a brand predominately marketed to black women. And even though Hallberg’s bio clearly states “SWEDE | SWEDEN,” she doesn’t appear to be constrained by Scandinavian beauty standards at all.
“Her 200,000-plus Instagram followers seem to be largely unbothered by the fact that Hallberg presents herself as nonwhite.”
But some of her followers are bothered, to the point of accusing the teen of “blackfishing,” a term “used to describe someone who masquerades as a Blk person to deceive others,” wrote Twitter user Cherelle Fiosa, who identified herself as “Afro-Mexicana.”
“By extreme tanning, dark makeup & braids, this fraud is exposed!”
“I wasn’t really mad, I was just kind of shocked because this girl genuinely looks like a mixed black person,” one of Hallberg’s fans, identified only as Deja, told Teen Vogue.
“It was just kind of annoying because she’s gotten so Instagram famous off what black people have. Not even black people get the same amount of attention she’s getting.”
Hallberg is making a name for herself with her makeup skills, whether it’s offering highlighter tips on YouTube or telling Allure magazine how she gets her face to glow “in a golden pigment that would make Midas jealous,” Allure wrote in May.
“Whenever Swedish model Emma Hallberg posts a selfie on Instagram, she easily gets at least 12,000 likes in less than a day.”
After she was accused of “blackfishing,” Hallberg told Teen Vogue that she’s never claimed to be black.
“It makes me sad that I have offended people,” she told the magazine. “My goal and intention is to look like myself and to share my makeup looks and outfits. My intentions have never been to look like a black woman.”
She also denied using tanners or tanning salons to darken her skin, telling Teen Vogue she gets “a very dark deep tan.”
The magazine, though, asked her why she uses makeup foundation that is darker than her skin tone. Hallberg said she does it to hide acne and “scar issues” on her face and said she didn’t understand why black women were angry with her.
When one of her fans messaged her about the controversy — point-blank asking her whether she’s white or “just posing as a colored person” — Hallberg responded by saying she’s white and “never claimed to be anything else.
“I’m NOT ‘posing’ as a colored person as you claim. I’ve never tried to be or look black. I was born with naturally curly hair and my skin gets very easily tanned in the sun!!”
According to People, Hallberg also explained herself to followers on her Instagram Stories.
“Let me explain,” she wrote.
“You’ve probably seen these two pictures besides [sic] each other all over Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, where they are called the ‘before & after,’” she wrote, according to People.
“The left picture was taken 2 years ago right before summer with barely any makeup and my hair straightened. The right picture was taken in July right after I came home from a vacation, with makeup.
“I’ve been accused of doing frequent spray tans, taking melatonin, getting hair perms and lip injections and many more. When I haven’t done anything of the above.”
This story was originally published November 27, 2018 at 9:33 AM with the headline "Fans thought Instagram’s Emma Hallberg was black. Now she’s accused of ‘blackfishing’."