Gwen Stefani joined Paper magazine for a tell-all interview, leaving nothing off-limits.
The singer, 51, opened up about her views in politics, feminism and the cultural appropriation backlash she received after featuring Harajuku Girls as part of her aesthetic in the 2000s.
In a read-between-the-lines response about her political views, Stefani explained, “I can see how people would be curious, but I think it’s pretty obvious who I am. I’ve been around forever. I started my band because we were really influenced by ska, which was a movement that happened in the late ’70s, and it was really all about people coming together.”
She continued, “The first song I ever wrote was a song called ‘Different People’, which was on the Obama playlist, you know, a song about everyone being different and being the same and loving each other. The very first song I wrote… the whole point of voting, is you have this personal space to feel how you feel. I use my platform to share my life story and to engage with people and to exchange whatever gift I was giving. I’m not a political science major. I am not that person. Everyone knows that. So why would I even talk about it?”
And when it comes to feminism, the “Slow Clap” songstress said it’s something that she’s always been, even if she didn’t know it yet.
“I don’t even know if I knew what feminist at that time was. I was very sheltered growing up with my family. I wasn’t political. I wasn’t angry,” she said. “I don’t need to go on Instagram and say ‘girl power.’ I just need to live and be a good person and leave a trail of greatness behind me. Stop talking about it and stop trying to bully everybody about it. Just do it. And that’s how I feel like I’ve lived my life.”
Despite the constant cultural appropriation backlash since 2006, Stefani, to this day, disagrees with it, “If we didn’t buy and sell and trade our cultures in, we wouldn’t have so much beauty, you know? We learn from each other, we share from each other, we grow from each other. And all these rules are just dividing us more and more… I think that we grew up in a time where we didn’t have so many rules. We didn’t have to follow a narrative that was being edited for us through social media, we just had so much more freedom.”
Read more from Stefani at papermag.com.
