Source: Nykieria Chaney / Getty
The daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King, Rev. Bernice A. King, condemned St. Louis rapper Sexxy Red for an AI photo post of her late father on the national holiday honoring his memory.
The 26-year-old rapper posted two AI photos of the Civil Rights icon on Monday (Jan. 20), to her X account. In one image, she is shown dancing seductively close to Dr. King while another shows her walking alongside King and other Civil Rights leaders. According to TheGrio, the posts garnered more than 50,000 likes before they were deleted.
Rev. King reacted to the images calling them “deplorable.”
“This is intentionally distasteful, dishonoring, deplorable, and disrespectful to my family and my father, who is not here to respond himself because he was assassinated for working for your civil and human rights and to end war and poverty,” she wrote in a reply on X the following day.
This is intentionally distasteful, dishonoring, deplorable, and disrespectful to my family and my father, who is not here to respond himself because he was assassinated for working for your civil and human rights and to end war and poverty.
Please delete. https://t.co/g1S726qSMf
— Be A King (@BerniceKing) January 21, 2025
Within hours, Sexxy Red offered an apology to Rev. King, writing, “You ain’t wrong,” adding, “Never meant to disrespect your family my apologies. Just reposted something I saw that I thought was innocent.”
Rev. King, who is the CEO of The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, accepted the rapper’s apology writing on X, in part, “Thank you for your apology, which I sincerely accept. Please know that it was not my intention that you be denigrated. I value you as a human being.”
“I hope you understand my concerns about the image,” she continued. “I know that my father has become a bit of a caricature to the world and that his image is often used with no regard to his family, his sacrificial work, or to the tragic, unjust way in which he died (a state-sanctioned assassination).”
Thank you for your apology, which I sincerely accept. Please know that it was not my intention that you be denigrated. I value you as a human being.
I hope you understand my concerns about the image. I know that my father has become a bit of a caricature to the world and that…
— Be A King (@BerniceKing) January 22, 2025
She added, “I earnestly wish that people would imagine what it would feel like to see their deceased, murdered father repurposed for party fliers, unjust legislation, etc.”
She closed the note writing, “All the best to you, young lady.”
Other social media users were not as forgiving with many blasting the “Pound Town” rapper calling her “ghetto” and “trashy” among other names. Rev. King pushed back against those remarks as well, writing in reply to a post, “Please don’t project your thoughts onto me. I don’t believe Sexyy Red to be a ‘degenerate,’ ‘ghetto,’ or ‘trash.’ I have spoken out in the past about the use of and comparison to either of my parents to denigrate other people,” according to TheGrio.
In other news, Rev. King recently shared a statement on news that President Donald Trump plans to declassify her father’s FBI files. The statement read, “Today, our family has learned that President Trump has ordered the declassification of the remaining records pertaining to the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and our father, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“For us, the assassination of our father is a deeply personal family loss that we have endured over the last 56 years. We hope to be provided the opportunity to review the files as a family prior to its public release.”
She added that at this time, the King Family is not taking any interviews as they await further information.
