Alyssa Milano Claps Back At Blackface Accusations & Insists She Was Portraying Snooki

Alyssa Milano is coming hard for trolls who have accused her of donning Blackface, when she actually did a parody of Snooki from 'Jersey Shore.' The actress even provided video as proof that she was impersonating the MTV star.

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June 30, 2020 9:44PM EDT
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Actress Alyssa Milano holds out her microphone as she starts a chat while speaking at a protest outside the White House, in Washington. This is the second day in a row the group has held a protest following President Donald Trump's meetings with Russian President Vladimir PutinTrump, Washington, USA - 17 Jul 2018
Actress and Board Member of People For the American Way Alyssa Milano speaks during a protest sponsored by The League of Women Voters, People for the American Way and Declaration for American Democracy Coalition to put pressure on the Biden Administration to take action on voting rights and end the filibuster outside the White House in Washington, DC., on Tuesday, October 19, 2021.Protest Gathers Outside The White House in Support of Voting Rights, Washington, District of Columbia, United States - 19 Oct 2021
Rev. Jamaal Bryant, Alyssa Milano, Jana Morgan, and Rabbi David Saperstein lead the march during a civil disobedience action for voting rights at the White House. Demonstrators are demanding that the Biden Administration take the lead on voting rights and pressure Congress to pass legislation protecting the right to vote. Specifically, they want passage of the Freedom to Vote Act and DC statehood. Voting rights activists arrested at the White House, White House, Washington, USA - 19 Oct 2021

Alyssa Milano is standing defiant against haters who have accused the actress/activist of wearing Blackface in the past. A photo showing the former Charmed star wearing darker makeup all over her face with frosty pink lips was making its way around Twitter, with many people not looking into where the picture actually originated. Instead, a number of users called her out for being a “another Hollywood liberal” who was going to get “cancelled” for being caught wearing Blackface. Only Alyssa made it VERY clear that it was bronzing makeup on her face and that she was playing Jersey Shore‘s Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi in a 2013 parody sketch. For the many users who hadn’t bothered to search out the photo’s origins, Alyssa even provided a link to the video, which you can see above.

Alyssa at first didn’t seem to want to draw attention to the controversy. On June 29, she tweeted, “Cancel culture is being weaponized by the right/Putin. Take notice of who they are targeting & what is trending. Are they trying to hurt Trump’s most vocal critics? Yup. The misinformation campaign has begun. Be vigilant in what you post on social media. Truth still matters.” But in the comments, users kept posting the still photo from her Funny or Die sketch and claiming that Alyssa was in Black or Brownface. So she came back with a fiery response the following day and the receipts of the full YouTube video where the still photo came from.

“Hey, a**holes. The below picture is me parodying Jersey Shore and Snookie’s tan. Snookie’s tan (she is a sweetheart by the way) is worthy of parodying as is Trump’s ‘tan’. So go f**k yourselves with your smear campaign. Here is the link to full video,” the 47-year-old tweeted on June 30. Alyssa provided a link to the YouTube video from 2013, where she participated in a sketch for the comedy website Funny or Die. The sped-up vid showed her evolution into becoming Snooki, with her dark tan getting applied, as well as heavy eye makeup and the MTV star’s iconic hair poof on top her head (though that was thanks to Photoshop).

Alyssa also included a screen-grab of an article titled, “Alyssa Milano Facing Backlash Over ‘Blackface Scandal’ After Damning Photo Comes Back To Haunt Her,” along with the sub-headline, “Notice how all of the ‘loving liberals’ are the ones getting canceled for racism and blackface?” It came from the conservative website LifeZette, who Alyssa appeared to be calling out.

Alyssa Milano
Alyssa Milano attends the Lifetime Summer Luau in Los Angeles on May 20, 2019. Photo credit: MediaPunch/Shutterstock.
Nicole 'Snooki' Polizzi

Nicole ‘Snooki’ Polizzi attends the CMT Music Awards in Nashville on June 9, 2010. Photo credit: Charles Sykes/Shutterstock. Alyssa Milano later parodied her look for a 2013 comedy video, and in 2020 was called out for wearing ‘Blackface’ instead of Snooki’s bronzing tanner.

Under her June 30 tweet, Alyssa added in the comments, “The photo of me parading Jersey Shore and Snookie’s tan? This proves the entire point of the actual tweet. I’ve never done, nor would I ever do blackface,” though she later corrected it to note she was “parodying,” not “parading.” Even with her explanation that she was impersonating the Chliean-American MTV star, Alyssa wrote, “The replies to this tweet are proving my point. Thank you.” Because when armed with the information that Alyssa was doing an impression of Snooki, many users still claimed she had done Blackface and needed “cancelling.”