Alicia Keys shares her amazing response after son felt ‘ashamed’ for wanting a rainbow manicure
Alicia Keys and her son Genesis. (Alicia Keys/ Instagram)
Alicia Keys has shared her response after her son felt “ashamed” for wanting a rainbow manicure, calling for “more expression” and fewer “labels”.
Keys said in a video posted on Instagram that her four-year-old son Genesis joined her for a trip to the nail salon and asked for rainbow nails.
She said: “He tells the lady that he wants rainbow colours on his nails. And she brings all of these colours and she paints each nail a different colour.”
But after he had his nails painted, Genesis appeared to regret his decision.
Keys continued: “After she painted his nails, he looked at me and he said: ‘Mommy, I don’t want this on my nails.’ He was like: ‘People are not going to like it.’
“Can you believe this? He’s four and he already understands the concept that someone is going to judge him because he chose rainbow colour on his nails.”
Alicia Keys performs in New York in 2016. (Gary Gershoff/Getty Images for Alicia Keys)
Keys said it pointed to a bigger issue of “how completely judged we are all the time”.
She added: “There are masculine and feminine energies inside of us all, period, that’s just how it is.
“It gets concerning to me that we can’t just explore these different sides of ourselves, these different energies that are within us… I oftentimes express the masculine energy that’s inside of me and it’s very natural to me, that’s how I feel.”
She said she told Genesis: “Nobody’s going to judge it, they’re going to love it, it’s so cool. Look how creative you are, how amazing that you had this idea.
“Stick with it – you chose it, you liked it, you do it. Who cares what anybody else says?”
She said she also told him that lots of men paint their nails, which made her son feel better.
Keys has previously written songs that explore LGBT+ themes, and she also performed at a Pride Live event this year for the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising in New York.
