Raven-Symoné Clears Up Controversial Comment About Her Race

Actress and Disney Channel star Raven-Symoné has finally addressed the Oprah Winfrey interview that brought her so much backlash in 2014—when she told the then-host, “I’m an American, I’m not an African American.” 10 years later, Symoné decided to address the comment after seeing a segment on Real Time With Bill Maher that featured her comments alongside actor Idris Elba’s statement that “people are obsessed with race.” The former child star took to her podcast with wife Miranda Maday, Tea Time With Raven and Miranda, to clarify what she really meant. “I wanna talk about something that has haunted me since 2014,” Symoné on the podcast before playing the portion of the Oprah interview in which she also said, “I don’t want to be labeled gay. I want to be labeled a human who loves humans. I’m tired of being labeled.” “A lot of people on the internet thought I said that I wasn’t Black, and I never said that,” she added. “There’s a difference between being Black and African. I identify as straight American. I’m an American, not an African American.” Symoné says that after she said those words, people “threw my name in the garbage.” “When that aired,...