Lupita Nyongo: I was uncomfortable being Luo

Lupita Nyongo: I was uncomfortable being Luo

Top Hollywood film star, Lupita Nyong’o, has disclosed that she was uncomfortable with her Luo heritage when she was a teenager.

Speaking to Vogue Magazine, the dazzling actress said the discomfort which came with communicating in Dholuo was too much, and that her dark skin made it even worse for her to venture in the acting industry in Kenya.

“There was a certain amount of shame attached to my mother tongue,” she told.

Adding she was confined to speaking in Swahili and English at school, Lupita said: “I developed this discomfort in all things that identified me as ethnically Luo when I was a teenager.”

In the wide-ranging interview, which earned Lupita her second cover on the popular magazine, the actress also divulged how she was told her skin was too dark.

In an industry where light-skinned actors were preferred, Lupita expressed that she was often passed over for roles because of her skin tone.

Defiant, the Oscar Award-winning actress persisted on.

“No, it didn’t ring true. I just thought, I need to find another way,” intimated Lupita.

The 12 Years A Slave actress also spoke about growing up in Kenya and how she would climb mango trees at her grandmother’s farm in Kisumu.

Nostalgic, the Mexican-born actress said she would like her children to experience such a life one day.

So does that mean Lupita will raise her children in Kenya?

“…I think that will all be determined when I have that moment. When I have that man,” the fashionable actress revealed.

When Lupita won the Oscar in 2014, she was pictured cuddling with rapper K’naan. Their relationship was thrust into the limelight, but it appears that it fizzled out.

In the Vogue interview, Lupita remained mum about her love life.

However, some sources have intimated that since she broke up with K’naan in 2014, Lupita hasn’t appeared to be seriously dating.

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Lupita Nyongo Being Luo made me uncomfortbale Dholuo Luo Oscar Award vogue magazine

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