In a July 29 interview, Countess Vaughn sat with Cherie Johnson of Family Matters and The Parkers to talk about her role as Kim Parker. In The Parkers, Vaughn spoke about her experiences on set being repeatedly fat-shamed and having her body compared to her white co-star Jenna Von Oÿ, who played Stevie. She talked about how it negatively affected her body image to the point that it led her to get silicone injections in her butt.
Johnson and Vaughn talked about Oÿ’s nickname of “white chocolate” to praise her body composition, and it affected Vaughn’s self-confidence being constantly compared to the white actress.
“They used to clown me on the show. They’d be like, ‘you’re a Black girl, and Jenna von Oÿ’s butt is bigger than yours, and she’s a white girl,” she said to Johnson. “And that used to bother the heck out of me. That used to be a joke, all the time.”
Vaughn explained how castmates compared her body to Oÿ’s.
“Because I’m a Black girl, and I’m supposed to have a big butt,” she recalled. “You know, you fall into these stereotypes. You feel like, ‘I’m supposed to have this.’ And then you’d see all the attention she would get for having it. They would lose their minds. I’m like, ‘A** is everything.’”
The pair continued to discuss Vaughn’s identity as a young Black actress under the microscope of the industry’s beauty standards. She continued to talk about the entire slew of fat jokes written at her when she was acting in Moesha.
“And I get mad at myself because I was a lot smaller when I was on Moesha, and they made me the fat kid,” Vaughn said earnestly. “The jokes. Even the first episode… the line was, ‘oh, it’s baby fat,’ and whats-her-name goes, ‘no, it’s fat, baby.’”
There were a lot of fat jokes that have been brought up since Moesha was released on Netflix, many of which were explored in the July 29 interview.
