Coco Austin via Instagram

Ice T’s wife, Coco Austin, has responded to the backlash she received after naming her cornrows the “Coco Swoop.” Many people on her Instagram post said she was appropriating, or Columbusing, a hairstyle by renaming it. But as indicated by her response to said backlash, the “model” obviously doesn’t realize that Bo Derek wasn’t the first to do it.


“So, recently I got social media’s panties in a bunch because I did braids to my hair. This is so stupid,” she said in the video. “I can’t believe I’m talking about it, and I believe this shouldn’t be turned out to be a race thing.

“I did my braids and I called them the Coco Swoop,” she continued. “I name all my styles that I do to myself. These are called the Coco Swoop. The braids before were called the Bo Derek Braids. And it’s a Coco-ism. I’ve always done it.”


Full stop. Bo Derek Braids? Yeah, how about the fact that black women have been wearing cornrows since before Bo Derek? And it’s not even the fact that Austin was wearing cornrows that got people’s panties in a bunch; it’s the renaming of a hairstyle that most nonblack people don’t consider fashionable until a white person wears it.

“Why can’t we all rename hairstyles or braids? That sounds so stupid. Why is everybody claiming something they shouldn’t? I know braids have been around for thousands of years. Don’t you think I know that?” Austin said.


“If I wanna wear a pineapple on my head, then I should be able to wear a pineapple on my head and call it the Pineapple Cocowop. I don’t know. You see where I’m going with this? Why is everybody hating? This should be a ‘human thing,’ right? Everybody should be able to do it. It’s a ‘human thing’—give that a shot—not a race war,” she added.

Austin’s stylist, a black woman, even came to the defense of her client of eight years:


Austin said in a previous post that her scalp was hurting and that the style took eight hours. I’ll say a prayer for the rest of her edges that are remaining after people on Instagram snatched them.