Copyright Us Weekly
Big Brother 27 winner Ashley Hollis is clapping back at castmate Mickey Lee’s claims she’s not “traditionally Black.” “When a castmate from your season does an interview saying you’re not Black,” Ashley, 25 wrote alongside a Monday, October 27, TikTok video. The clip featured Ashley standing in the middle of a room lipsyncing to T-Pain’s song “Up Down (Do This All Day).” After a few seconds, Ashley is joined by her parents. “Looks like two Black parents to me,” Ashley wrote after her mom and dad popped up in the frame. The trio ended the video by dancing together joyfully. “When someone says you’re not ‘traditionally black’, meanwhile you have two black parents 💀😂🙄 hmm..,” the caption read. While Ashley didn’t name who she was calling out in the TikTok video, Big Brother fans were quick to figure out she was referring to Mickey. Ashley and Mickey, both Black women, competed alongside each other on season 27. Mickey, 35, was voted out during the pre-jury phase of the game. Ashley, for her part, was crowned the season’s champion and took home the $750,000 prize. After her eviction, Lee spoke to former winner Taylor Hale in an interview with Entertainment Tonight about her experience as a Black woman in the game. “I am 100 percent African American,” Mickey said in September. “I come from areas where I do experience a lot of racism. I’ve never had a leg up in certain opportunities. I think I am the only one that experienced that. I do believe that Ashley is African American as well, but we do come from different backgrounds. When I say traditional Black girl, I mean the ones that people always stereotype.” The following month, Mickey took to TikTok to clarify her remarks amid fan confusion. “Never did I ever say that I felt like I was the only real Black woman or the only Black woman on the show at all,” Mickey said in an October video. “What I did say was I felt like I was the only traditional Black woman in the house. And in hindsight, I definitely did use the wrong word choice and what I truly meant was stereotypical Black woman.” Mickey continued, “All I was trying to express [that] I felt like the only Black woman, Black person in that house that was being treated through a stereotypical lens. And that’s it.” Mickey claimed that she felt like she was “asked a lot of questions” about her hair being real, weaves, growing up in a single-parent household, food stamps, rap songs, twerking and more. Mickey added that she used the wrong word in her interview due to lack of sleep and exhaustion from her eviction. “I didn’t have time to properly process or put together or properly express my thoughts at that moment,” she explained. “But under no circumstances was I ever trying to invalidate or devalue anyone else’s Blackness. I was really just trying to focus on my experience and how I felt.”
