Recently, rumours of Kelly Rowland bleaching her skin caught wind. And although it’s a rare thing that she acknowledges the haters, the famously dark-skinned beauty wanted it to be resoundingly clear that she loves her skin and reppin for Team Chocolate will be her forever mood. She hopped on IG stories with the quickness and said:

“I just landed in LA and I saw that a lot of people are like, ‘Oh my God she bleaches her skin.’ Now, I never answer questions like this because I think it’s so stupid or even say anything about comments like this, but I am not the one to bleach my skin. Nor do I want to bleach my skin. Nor do I have to bleach my skin. I don’t even think that that—it’s not for me.”

The 37-year-old went on to explain that her perceived “lighter skin” could be due to a number of factors in a video or photo, like lighting, and reiterated that skin bleaching is a definite “no” for her.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BpXzQfIhP-W/?utm_source=ig_embed

Despite the warmth of their skin and the way it absorbs and reflects light like a built-in Trophy Wife, it has long been an insecurity amongst a lot of us taught to self-hate, to feel less than, unpretty, and ultimately inferior to lighter and whiter skin. In recent years, the wave of self-love has had a beautiful effect in the way we accept ourselves and glorify our beauty, acknowledging our beauty and our skin like the liquid gold that it is. Still, there are some of us that have missed the memo, especially in parts of the world where an exposure to black people other than Zendaya and Rihanna as symbols of black beauty might be few and far between. For those reasons, skin bleaching still unfortunately remains a thing.

With a complexion as gorgeous as Kelly’s, how could you not be loud and proud about your shameless love for self? In a world where you’re taught to hate the skin you’re in, seeing such unequivocal self-love is not only a good thing, it’s also needed.