Andres Tardio
Exclusive: Amber Rose Talks Beyoncé, Kehlani, & Previews Slut Walk 2016
Amber Rose is expanding her empire. After acting in Sister Code and “Black-ish,” and writing her first book, How to Be a Bad Bitch, the model-actress-author has revealed her latest endeavor: MuvaMoji.
Rap-Up attended Rose’s emoji app launch at Dave & Buster’s in Hollywood on Wednesday (Mar. 30), and spoke to the businesswoman about everything from her misunderstood Beyoncé comments to Kehlani’s “unfortunate” controversy.
During the talk, Muva also dished about her advocacy for LGBT causes and why Slut Walk 2016 will be “bigger,” “better,” and “way more controversial.”
What were you most proud of achieving with the Slut Walk?
Just bringing awareness to rape culture, victimizing, double standards, slut-shaming. I feel like, as women, we deal with that every single day, and a lot of people just don’t understand. It’s an extreme form of bullying, especially slut-shaming. I really felt like I brought a lot of awareness to it because now rappers are apologizing for calling girls hos. So, I think it’s just really cool.
Your comments about Beyoncé caused quite a stir. Can you explain what you really meant without the restrictions of Twitter?
Yeah, I’m huge fan of Beyoncé. The first two times I met her, I cried. But no, I was just basically saying that it was like classism because she is an uber superstar. It wasn’t even just Beyoncé. I’ve said the same thing about Pink and women that have “talent,” and I say “talent” in quotations. I am looked as talentless when I am not talentless. This life was given to me, so I made the best of it. Just gotta keep moving forward and do better in life. I could have just went back to obscurity and I didn’t.
Kehlani was recently criticized over her relationship. You’ve faced similar scrutiny. What were your thoughts as you saw all of that unravel?
I just thought it was extremely unfortunate. As human beings, we love and make mistakes. We hurt and we feel pain. Regardless, if you’re a man or a woman, I feel like it’s very easy to get misunderstood on social media. I think that’s exactly what happened… And even if she wasn’t misunderstood, people need to just mind their fucking business and let people be with who they want to be with.
Why was it important to launch MuvaMoji?
All the emotions that are in the emojis are similar to the faces that I make. And I just added a whole gay pride section, which is really important. I’m a big advocate in the LGBT community. Also, different sized eggplants are very important when you’re texting. And yeah, I just wanted to have a variety of cool things. We have same-sex marriage, two wives and babies, two husbands and babies, black, white, all different races. I just think that’s really cool.
What can we expect from Slut Walk 2016?
Slut Walk 2016 will be in Brooklyn this year and L.A. It’s gonna be way bigger, way better, more controversial. You guys know, I don’t give a fuck. I speak my mind and it’s gonna be really O.D. this year. I’m looking forward to it.
–Words and photos by Andres Tardio
