Hilary Duff was back in the spotlight over the weekend after dressing up in costumes with her boyfriend that many found offensive for a Halloween party.
The former teen star wore a sexy pilgrim outfit while her boyfriend Jason Walsh dressed up as an Indigenous chief, complete with red face paint and headdress.
Photos of the couple’s outfits were immediately slammed on social media with people calling out Duff and Walsh for being “insensitive” and “ignorant” while showing “blatant racism.”
Hilary Duff’s own followers also jumped on the actress and singer, expressing disappointment with the costume choices. An Instagram photo of the actress taken before the party sparked a heated debate amongst her followers.
Duff apologized for the outfits in a tweet saying the costumes were “not properly thought through.”
Wearing mock or sexualized Indigenous costumes on Halloween has been a yearly debate with First Nations groups, who call the costumes culturally insensitive.
“As a native woman, I am 10 times more likely to be raped and murdered than any other woman,” Amy Willier from the Moonstone Creation Native Art Gallery told Global News.
“That’s a scary fact. The fact that people dress like we’re pornography, it instills in somebody else that it’s okay.”