This week in Shade Court, we’ve got quite the diversity of shade and would-be shade for you. Let’s go on a journey from catfighting to designer underwear, to pregnancy tests, to children shading other children—truly the circle of life.
Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000006
The Case: Justin Bieber’s new Calvin Klein ads debuted this week, provoking reactions in humans with sight. One of those reactions came from Mark Wahlberg’s wife, Rhea, who compared her husband’s manhood to Bieber’s as if anyone on Earth gives a god damn.
The Defendant: E! Online
The Evidence:
The Deliberation: Can we start off by recognizing that Mark Wahlberg’s wife is kind of a wackadoo? I had never heard of this woman until this morning, and I’d very much like to go back to a happier time. This is not really on the topic of shade, but Rhea Wahlberg would do well to zip it, because, frankly, her husband and Justin both look like giant douchebags.
Back to the matter at hand. An impassioned defense of one’s husband about the aesthetic quality of his underwear ad campaign versus the underwear ad campaign of another man is not, and has never been, shade.
The Ruling: Not shade
Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000006
The Case: Inexplicably, Celebrity Apprentice is still on the air and this season, actress Vivica Fox and reality star Kenya Moore have been giving the groundbreaking roles of: “catfighting bitches.” For whatever reason, the two women don’t get along and in an effort to boost ratings have taken their beef to Twitter. On Monday, Vivica Fox fired off these hot takes:
The Defendant: The Devil Perez Hilton
The Evidence:
The Deliberation: What I love about this is how Perez Hilton, or whatever intern wrote it, completely contradicts himself in a single headline. Shade is not shocking. Shade is like a frozen dagger to the heart whose icy rudeness slowly melts through your entire body.
Vivica Fox went off like a crazy person—a crazy person who is thirteen years old. These insults are so elementary and stupid that the concept of shade is embarrassed to even be mentioned in this debacle.
A good rule of thumb when it comes to Perez Hilton and shade is: anytime the word is used by his website, it is almost certainly being used incorrectly.
The Ruling: Not Shade
Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000007
The Case: Best rapper alive, tiny rap queen and the “ultimate purveyor of swagu,” Sophia Grace, dropped the hottest record of the year earlier this week. The “Best Friends” video features Sophia Grace and all her homegirls shopping up a storm in Kmart, dissing boys and generally just loving life as members of the better sex. However, many have pointed out the giant, pink tutu-ed elephant in the room: Rosie, the girl we all knew to be Sophia Grace’s cousin and best friend, is nowhere to be found.
The Defendant: Sophia Grace
The Evidence: WHERE ROSIE AT?
The Deliberation: How you gonna make a song about best friends and not include the girl who you created a viral video with? I feel like making a viral video with someone that leads to you being on Ellen and hugging Nicki Minaj automatically pushes you into best friend status, and following that, an appearance on your best friend’s music video “Best Friends.”There could be plenty of reasonable explanations for Rosie’s absence. Maybe Rosie is working on her own solo debut and didn’t want their two projects to be muddled together. Perhaps the executives at Kmart just weren’t feeling Rosie and they told Sophia Grace that she had to make a choice and Sophia Grace was like: “Sorry, girl, but I’m tryna get this money. I got a college fund to pad.”
Either way, she spends the 4 minute and 24 second duration of the video singing over and over about her “best friends,” which leads me to believe that anyone who isn’t in the video ain’t her best friend. I don’t know if Rosie has seen this yet, but if Sophia Grace surprise dropped the video without giving her a heads up, that’s a whole lot of shade coming from such a tiny body.
The Ruling: Shade
Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000008
The Case: Tamera Mowry announced that she is pregnant with her second child with a sorta cute, albeit obviously sponsored, Instagram post.
Not long after, Chrissy Teigen tweeted a joke about celebrity pregnancy announcements that seemed to be directed at, or least inspired by, Tamera’s post.
The Defendant: Bossip
The Evidence:
The Deliberation: After members of the Twitter population noticed Chrissy’s tweet and began scolding her for it, she explained that she meant no harm and that, specifically, she meant no shade.
The thing with Chrissy Teigen is she makes fun of so many things that I genuinely believe she meant no ill-will towards Tamera. However, the lack of ill-will does not necessarily denote lack of shade. As I’ve said before, not directly mentioning the object of your shade is one of the most effective shade-throwing tactics. When you don’t even have to say the person’s name for them to know that you’re clearly talking about them, you’ve nailed it.
I do believe Chrissy that she wasn’t only talking about Tamera, but she was clearly talking about Tamera. You’ll also notice that she used a bit of self-deprecation (that little bit about how she would do the same thing for $$$) to try to distract from the shadiness.
The Ruling: Shade
Shade Court Docket #2015JZ000009
The Case: Monica Potter, of Head Over Heels fame, and Dax Shepherd were tasked with presenting the award for favorite hip-hop artist at the People’s Choice Awards. The two opened with a bit that was basically: LOL WHITE PEOPLE DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HIP HOP LOL AMIRIGHT?
They clueless and incorrectly named a bunch of hip-hop artists. At one point, Monica Potter referred to Iggy as “Igloo Australia,” the now-ubiquitous nickname given to her by her arch nemesis, Azealia Banks.
The Defendant: Page Six
The Evidence:
The Deliberation: There is a zero percent chance that Monica Potter wrote this joke herself but since she is the vessel, she shall claim the glory. Without a doubt there is some joke writer for the People’s Choice Awards still laughing about how he or she got away with this. Was it technically a joke? Sure, but people say shady shit disguised as jokes all the time.
They could have used a hundred different jokey iterations of Iggy Azalea’s name but the fact that they chose this specific form leaves no doubt that somebody knew exactly what they were doing.
When she went up to accept her award, Iggy made a stupid unfunny joke about Dax because she is stupid and unfunny. Presumably, this was her getting back at them for subtly clowning her under the guise of clueless whiteness. But her bullshit was no match for the shady shadiness that had just gone down.
The Ruling: Shade
Images via Getty. Top image by Tara Jacoby, featuring the shade artist at a young age.