Hollyoaks Launches Investigation After Rachel Adedeji Calls Out Show For Racism

9 June 2020, 11:32

Actress Rachel Adedeji expressed that she was ‘disappointed’ with Hollyoaks’ approach to the Black Lives Matter movement after claiming she experienced racism on the show.

Hollyoaks has launched an investigation after actress and singer Rachel Adedeji claimed she experienced racism on the Channel 4 show.

The soap put out a statement, which read: “Hollyoaks has zero tolerance on racism. We are taking Rachel Adedeji's comments extremely seriously and are investigating.”

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This comes after the 28-year-old former X Factor star took to Twitter earlier this week to outline her ‘disappointment’ following Hollyoaks’ response to the Black Lives Matter movement.

In a lengthy statement, she claimed that she had experienced racism throughout her 200+ episodes on the show, writing: “Did Black Lives Matter when I was told ‘You’re all the same’ by a makeup artist you employed, and remains in employment till this day?"

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She continued: “Did Black Lives Matter when a number of female black actors were forced to drastically change their hair, because if not, the viewers ‘would not be able to tell them apart’?

“Did Black Lives Matter when my fellow black castmates are deemed angry, aggressive and too vocal?”

Rachel also claimed that a senior member of her production team used racial slurs towards her and her black co-stars, adding that ‘the list goes on’ and ‘very little is being done behind the scenes’.

Former Hollyoaks star Amanda Clapham jumped to Rachel’s defence in an open letter she penned to the soap, on Twitter, where she said she had been a witness to ‘micro-aggressions’ towards black actors on the show.

She called out the soap for ‘disproportionately’ singling out and 'telling off' a black cast member for ‘messing about’ on set, despite a large group of stars being involved.

Amanda also expressed her outrage at an instance where she claimed a makeup artist had given Rachel the wrong shade of face powder and dismissed her request for the ‘correct shade’.

She said: “I was on set with Rachel not long after she joined the show and a makeup artist brought out a face powder for her (the powder applied to stop us from sweating under the lights). The powder had ‘dark’ written on it and was 2 shades darker than Rachel’s skin complexion.

“When she asked if she could have the correct powder to match her skin tone she was told, no and that was all they had. I remember saying to Rachel at the time that it didn’t look right at all and I could tell Rachel felt she had no choice. This shouldn’t have been the case, and if I knew then, what I know now, I would have raised my voice in support.”

Amanda also urged the show to ‘apologise to Rachel’ and ‘improve proactively making changes within the building in each department’.

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