Zara Larsson addressed claims she insulted a follower using a ‘gay slur’ in a frank new TikTok video (Picture: WireImage)
Swedish hitmaker Zara Larsson has hit back at claims she insulted a TikToker using a gay slur and said she’ll be coming off the platform.
Larsson addressed the accusations in a new video posted on her own TikTok, telling her 1.4million followers: ‘I hate that I have to do this.’
The 25-year-old explained that someone had mocked up a fake comment that appeared to show her using a slur, but insisted the image was edited.
Addressing her followers while wrapped in a shawl, Larsson – who was getting ready to celebrate her birthday at the time of filming – revealed she’d been inundated with comments accusing her of writing the insult and said the incident had ‘ruined TikTok’ for her.
Larsson began: ‘Hey ya’ll. I’m getting ready to go out, it’s my birthday today. I hate that I have to do this, especially on my birthday. I’ve already talked about it twice, but on my story and they disappear.’
She went on: ‘Let’s just say for the last and final time: I have not called anyone a slur, OK? A guy who I don’t know commented, “you’re so irrelevant, your music sucks”, and I said, “yet here you are commenting”.
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Larsson called out social media users who had been inundating her with comments in her new video and said she’d be stepping away from TikTok (Picture: PA)
‘Sometimes I can’t hold my tongue, like I need to say something. He edited that comment saying I called him something else, which I didn’t do. Everyone who knows me knows I would never call someone a slur.’
Larsson added: ‘I don’t know [if the post] is still up, he has blocked me from seeing it and I have blocked him because now I’m getting p****d, because this was three weeks ago and I’m still getting thousands of comments every day saying I was rude to someone, which I would never be.
‘You guys have been so f*****g rude in the comments to me about something I never said, and it’s making me sad.’
Revealing that she’d be signing off from the social media platform for a while, the star said: ‘I used to love TikTok, I thought it was so fun. And now this has kind of ruined the experience for me.
‘I will take a little break from TikTok because I’m a human being and it makes me sad, honestly.
‘So this is just me coming to my own defence, once again to let you know I am not the type of person who would write something rude in the comment section to someone else. And that’s that.’
Larsson insisted the image was doctored as she prepared for her birthday celebrations (Picture: TikTok/@zaralarsson)
Back in 2019, Larsson found herself at the center of another homophobia row after clashing online with James Charles (Picture: Instagram)
Metro.co.uk couldn’t locate the edited image in question but, by the looks of it, many of Larsson’s fans presumed it had been fabricated and were quick to jump to her defence.
One person wrote beneath her latest post: ‘Pls it didn’t even look real. How are people taking it seriously.’
Another TikToker added: ‘You’re so kind and sweet and your fans know that you never would write something like that.’
Other comments included: ‘I know you wouldn’t use any slur and offend anyone’ and ‘Anyone who thought that slur was real and not edited there should go and have their eyes checked asap.’
Back in 2019, Larsson found herself at the centre of another homophobia row when she claimed James Charles slid into her then-boyfriend Brian Whittaker’s social media DMs ‘several times’.
Larsson’s comments came amid Charles’ notorious public spat with Tati Westbrook, who accused the YouTuber of manipulating people’s sexuality.
However, Larsson soon clarified that Charles had actually only attempted to hit up Whittaker once, resulting in Larsson facing accusations that she was implying the ‘LGBTQ family is predatory’.
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In response, Larsson wrote in part: ‘Although me and James have been speaking privately and are on good terms, I’m sorry really for giving homophobic people a reason to believe that every member of the LGBTQ family is predatory.
‘And I’m sorry for being a messy bitch and making me self involved (sic). I’m sorry for sending all of the hate that James received in his direction. I’m sorry for not thinking about the consequences.’
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