Nothing spells sellout more than a "celebrity" editing the image of a crowd to appear more famous than she actually is.
Latto took to social media Tuesday (April 18) to fend down rumors she had manipulated a picture from her Coachella concert to make the crowd appear larger. This garnered reactions from people on the internet, most of them mocking the artist.
“Never photoshopped a crowd, lmao,” the rapper wrote on her Instagram Stories, adding, “I expanded it so it would fit in my Instagram swipe without getting cut off but it was clearly f—ed up so I didn’t end up using it & just posted the wrong version by accident on Twitter babes.”
Latto was born on December 22, 1998, in Columbus, Ohio, and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. She started rapping at age ten, according to All Music. She recorded a couple of mixtapes in the latter half of the 2010s before releasing her debut studio album, Queen of da Souf, in 2020.
In March 2022, she released “777,” her second studio album. “I wanted to solidify myself and where I fit in the industry,” Latto told Complex about the album. “This is just the first introduction. ‘Big Energy’ is the pop sound from this project. I acquired an R&B sound. I got the rap trap sound. I had some rhythmic stuff that I recorded with Pharrell, just different swaggy stuff.”
At age 16, she joined Queen Latifah/Jermaine Dupri-produced Lifetime reality-television show, “The Rap Game.” The boot camp-style event pitted rappers against each other, and Latto, under her “Miss Mulatto” identity, won the challenge.
While this had not been her first big controversy after her rise to fame, the best new artist Grammy nominee then made it obvious she didn’t plan to keep fueling the topic, closing her statement by penning a simple “Next” with a happy emoji surrounded by love.
Speculation about the photograph taken from the stage began to brew online shortly after Latto’s performance on Sunday, as eagle-eyed followers observed the same persons being reproduced in the crowd on both corners of the frame. “You gotta photoshop crowds now … those ‘fans’ are edited,” one Twitter user wrote in the replies of the photo in question, while another tweeted, “girl wut- two of the same people. editing ain’t it.”
Elsewhere on her Stories, Latto shouted out Saweetie, Lola Brooke, and TiaCorine, all of whom joined her onstage at Coachella for live performances of, respectively, “Bi— From Da Souf (Remix),” “Don’t Play Wit It” and “Freaky T.” She also tweeted a shot of her planned 18-song setlist, stating, “I didn’t have time for all the songs, but this was the original setlist.”
We can all expect that this will not be the last time that we see Latto’s name up on the list for the funniest controversies, as even this had not been her first. Only time, and her wit, can tell what other goofy strategies she may have on her sleeves to keep on being a celebrity.