The TikTok star Charli D’Amelio has been criticized by the “View” cohost Sunny Hostin, who called her a “prime example” of “misappropriating” dances created by Black TikTokers.
The episode, which aired Monday, featured a discussion about Courtney Love’s recent claims that Olivia Rodrigo plagiarized one of her band’s album covers. “I don’t think it should be considered ‘cute’ or ‘sweet’ to misappropriate other people’s creative content,” Hostin said. “We’re seeing it big-time on TikTok with Black creators.”
She said Black TikTokers “create these incredible dances that go viral like the Renegade dance and Savage and then you see white teenage women misappropriate that content and make millions of dollars off of it.”
She cited the 17-year-old D’Amelio, who is one of the biggest TikTok stars in the world, as a “prime example” of this. D’Amelio joined TikTok in late 2019, and her lip-syncing and dance videos exploded in popularity. She has over 180 million TikTok followers and has a Hulu docuseries with her family coming soon.
“She even appeared on Jimmy Fallon, doing all these dance moves and didn’t even give credit to the creators,” Hostin said. “I think that these creators need to stop stealing things from other people and making money off of it.”
A fellow panelist, Ana Navarro, agreed, saying: “You see some of the systemic racism that people don’t want to address: the way that the white folks are getting treated versus those who are actually doing the creation.”
The TV appearance Hostin is referring to occurred on “The Tonight Show” in March 2020. As part of an ongoing segment in which TikTok stars teach Fallon viral dances, D’Amelio demonstrated choreography from dances like “Say So” and “Hard Times.” While a YouTube clip of the segment credits the TikTok handles of the original dancers, there was no credit for the dancers on-screen.
This isn’t the first time D’Amelio has been accused of stealing dances from Black TikTokers. In February 2020, an article published by The New York Times reported that the Renegade TikTok dance that contributed to D’Amelio’s popularity wasn’t created by her but by an Atlanta teenager named Jalaiah Harmon. D’Amelio later credited Harmon as the creator of the dance during a collaboration at the NBA All-Star Game in 2020.
D’Amelio did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Shortly after D’Amelio’s guest segment on “The Tonight Show,” a fellow TikTok star, Addison Rae, also appeared on the show. Like D’Amelio, she demonstrated popular TikTok dances. Both Rae and Fallon faced social-media backlash for appearing not to credit the original creators of these dancers, most of whom were Black.
Fallon later addressed the controversy during an episode on April 6, when he interviewed the creators of some of these viral dances.
The issue surrounding Black TikTokers’ work being used without credit by white influencers has been highlighted recently by Black TikTokers who are refusing to make a dance to Megan Thee Stallion’s new song, “Thot S—,” in a “strike” intended to call out dance appropriation on the app.
