Tattoo and make-up artist Kat Von D has responded to rumours that she is both anti-Semitic and against vaccinating her baby.
Celebrity tattoo and make-up artist Kat Von D has been forced to address rumours that she is both anti-Semitic and against vaccinating her baby.
"As hard as it was for me to film this video I hope it brings some much-needed clarity," the 37-year-old star writes in the description of a new 11-minute video – which was uploaded to her YouTube account on March 14 – detailing the origin of both claims, the former of which began all the way back in 2008, during the filming of Miami Ink.
Revealing that an unnamed male cast member felt "threatened" by the fact that ratings shot up when Kat joined the show, she then details the "mistreatment" on set and how "there were so many times that he said things to me that were so repulsive, I could never repeat those things out loud".
Kat alleges that the person in question went on to forge an anti-Semitic message on an 8x10 photo, which – despite the network seeing it and agreeing that it wasn't her handwriting – eventually went public.
"I have no idea who actually forged the message, but what I do know is that the man who treated me so terribly on set took this 8x10 and threatened the network, saying that if they don't cancel LA Ink that he would go to all these different media outlets and release the 8x10 with the forged message on it.
"After all these years, this is the first time that I'm actually talking about this publicly," she says. "Honestly, I've been dreading making this video, but I know that it has to be done. I have to do it. I can't just keep letting other people write this narrative that's so inaccurate and so false and so awful. None of this feels good to relive."
Kat then goes on to address the "uproar" that she seemingly unintentionally caused last summer, when she said on social media that she would be raising her then-unborn baby vegan and vaccination-free.
"I am not an anti-vaxxer; what I am is a first-time mother," she says, before explaining how she'd been doing "a bunch of research and reading the ingredients" of these vaccines.
"Since then, we have decided as parents to consult with our paediatrician and just let him educate us and guide us… I am choosing not to make our decision – or any of our baby's health records – public."
Watch the full video below.
Early last year, Kat teamed up with Green Day legend Billie Joe Armstrong to release their collaborative Basket Case eyeliner.
