PSA: the singer Michelle Williams is not the actress Michelle Williams – and she’d really like you to stop being so confused about that.
ICYMI, the actress Michelle Williams won Best Lead Actress at this week’s Emmys for her role in Fosse/Verdon. During her incredible speech, Williams called for equal pay – particularly for women of colour, who make “52 cents on the dollar compared to [their] white male counterparts,” and was met with a standing ovation.
Fans, followers and friends were quick to shower Williams’ with praise (and some unnecessary trolling), but sadly, a lot of the tributes were being directed to the wrong Williams.
Former Destiny’s Child singer Michelle Williams took to Instagram Live to clear things up. “How come, when y’all are tagging, and commenting, and congratulating a person – do y’all see that I’m black?” she asked.
“When you go to my profile…when you search for ‘Michelle Williams’ – I am black,” she said. “I’m trying to figure out why in the world I’m getting cursed out in my comments for Michelle Williams’ speech which I thought was her truth, I thought it was awesome, I thought she was factual – I could be wrong.”
There’s a few questions here: why are people cursing anyone out for Williams’ moving speech? And why are they confusing her for the singer Michelle Williams?
Sadly, it’s not the first time this case of mistaken identity has occurred. Last year, a Twitter user noticed that when you Google “destiny’s child five members” a photo of the actress Michelle Williams pops up alongside Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland.
Then there was the time a guy working in a ticket office didn’t believe she was one of the Michelle Williams. “My daughter is an enormous Stevie Wonder fan, and we went to a Stevie Wonder concert,” the actress told Huffington Post. “When I was in line to pick up our tickets, the guy said, ‘No, you’re not,’ and I said, ‘I am.’…I showed him my ID, and he said, ‘Oh, that Michelle Williams. I just assumed that it was gonna be… Oh cool. What?”
It’s great that the actress is able to see the humour in this not-so-confusing predicament, but it sounds like the Internet needs to make a conscious effort to check before mixing these two talented women up again.