It’s been a difficult year to be Blake Lively, that’s for sure. First, the actor had her work ethic and reputation ripped to shreds in the wake of the It Ends With Us legal fallout, and now netizens are accusing the Gossip Girl star of cultural appropriation, after a L’Oréal diversity advertisement from 2017 resurfaced, in which the actor refers to herself as part “Cherokee.”

“I’m English, Irish, German and Cherokee. So my family’s sort of from all over,” Lively noted in the commercial. The blonde actor, who is known for portraying stereotypical blonde bombshells, elaborated: “To look back far into my heritage and see where everybody came from, you know, it’s neat to be in this country that has such diversity and such culture.”

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Lively was born in the Tarzana neighbourhood of Los Angeles, California. She has an older brother and three half-siblings, who also work in entertainment and have not commented on that part of their Native American heritage so far.

For context, the Cherokee people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the US. It should be noted that many people identify as having distant Cherokee ancestry, but most are not enrolled in any tribe, partake in any associated cultural activities, or are visibly recognisable as Native American.

Another iteration of the campaign for L’Oréal’s True Match foundation had the actor saying: “There’s a story behind my skin, it’s a mosaic of all the faces before. My only makeup is true match.”

While a voiceover of the actor played over a montage of videos in which she was posed in a gray studio space, the advertisement placed the words “Blake Lively—English, German, Cherokee,” into the frame. The word Cherokee was underlined with red.

“It’s my skin, my story, my true match,” Lively continued.

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♬ Cherokee Drums - Global Journey

Understandably, the ad stirred up quite a lot of controversy on social media, with many users claiming that Lively was unfairly laying claim to a heritage she had no connection to.

“This is why I always had an issue with this heritage month celebration thingies,” content creator Oumnia Boualam said.

“Cause what are we celebrating? Did I miss the memo where there were reparations made? Where is the dollar? That’s the part I wanna celebrate,” Boualam said in connection to the ad, condemning Lively for connecting herself to indigenous culture to sell makeup products.

Other users felt similarly, noting that Lively has based her career on playing white women, an indication that this is the heritage she primarily identifies with. To make her background look “more interesting” for the purposes of an ad was slammed as “tone deaf” and “tasteless” by multiple users.

It led to accusations of cultural insensitivity and appropriation, with many users referencing the backlash she received for marrying her husband Ryan Reynolds on a plantation in 2012. This earned her the moniker ‘plantation princess’ which was dropped into multiple comment sections.

“Is the Cherokee with us in the room?” one user on TikTok asked. “I don’t believe people who say they’re Cherokee unless I see the DNA results LMAO,” another one noted. Someone else commented: “They always wanna be Cherokee.”

Lively and her team haven’t commented on the controversy yet.