--- title: Give All the Awards to Lupita Nyong’o for Her Inspirational Speech About Beauty description: It's not often you see Lupita Nyong'o — who may well win the Best Supporting Actress statuette at this weekend's Oscars — in the same... canonical: https://time.com/11692/lupita-nyongo-essence-black-beauty/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-02-28T20:04:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-01T08:47:50.821Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Give All the Awards to Lupita Nyong’o for Her Inspirational Speech About Beauty og:description: It's not often you see Lupita Nyong'o — who may well win the Best Supporting Actress statuette at this weekend's Oscars — in the same... og:url: https://time.com/11692/lupita-nyongo-essence-black-beauty/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd47298b6bb0f7905/6986839d35ba6f5d03c00bef/140228-lupita.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1500 og:image:height: 844 og:image:alt: Lupita Nyong'o og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Give All the Awards to Lupita Nyong’o for Her Inspirational Speech About Beauty twitter:description: It's not often you see Lupita Nyong'o — who may well win the Best Supporting Actress statuette at this weekend's Oscars — in the same... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd47298b6bb0f7905/6986839d35ba6f5d03c00bef/140228-lupita.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Give All the Awards to Lupita Nyong'o for Her Inspirational Speech About Beauty > Sponsored content. 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Feb 28, 2014 8:04 PM UTC It’s not often you see Lupita Nyong’o — who may well win the [Best Supporting Actress](http://entertainment.time.com/2014/02/26/oscars-2014-best-supporting-actress-lupita-nyongo/) statuette at this weekend’s Oscars — in the same sentence as “unbeautiful.” In addition to her acclaimed role in _12 Years a Slave_, she’s nabbed high-end fashion endorsement deals and has become one of the most-watched red-carpet regulars in Hollywood. (**PHOTOS:** [TIME’s Portraits of the Winning Actors from the 2014 Oscars](http://entertainment.time.com/2014/03/03/oscars-2014-winning-actors-time-photos/)) But — as the actress told the crowd yesterday at the annual Black Women in Hollywood Luncheon organized by _Essence_ (which is owned by the same parent company as TIME) — she didn’t always feel deserving of the attention. In accepting her award for Best Breakthrough Performance, Nyong’o took the opportunity to address her own evolving thoughts about beauty and race. (**PHOTOS**: [Your Favorite Celebs on the Red Carpet](http://entertainment.time.com/2014/03/02/your-favorite-celebrities-walk-the-2014-oscars-red-carpet/)) She explained that she received a letter from a dark-skinned girl who decided not to lighten her skin after being inspired by Nyong’o. It reminded Nyong’o that she, too, used to feel that her skin kept her from being beautiful — until a celebrity changed that for _her_: --- > “” --- You can (and should) [read the acceptance speech in full over at](http://www.essence.com/2014/02/27/lupita-nyongo-delivers-moving-black-women-hollywood-acceptance-speech)[ _Essenc_](http://www.essence.com/2014/02/27/lupita-nyongo-delivers-moving-black-women-hollywood-acceptance-speech)[_e_](http://www.essence.com/2014/02/27/lupita-nyongo-delivers-moving-black-women-hollywood-acceptance-speech), but it’s worth noting that Nyong’o’s story about Alek Wek is a reminder of one important consequence of a lack of diversity [in Hollywood](http://entertainment.time.com/2014/02/13/agencies-hollywood-racial-diversity/) and [in the fashion world](http://entertainment.time.com/2013/09/17/naomi-campbell-racist-runways-must-end/). Though diversity studies tend to concentrate on numbers and percentages, personal anecdotes like the one Nyong’o related remind us that it _does_ matter to viewers that they see themselves represented in the media. After all, if it takes a celebrity to make someone like _her_ feel pretty, imagine what it means to those who _aren’t_ destined for [style icon](http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/fashion/lupita-nyong-style-icon-article-1.1703985) status. (**MORE**: [Richard Corliss on why Lupita Nyong’o will win Best Supporting Actress](http://entertainment.time.com/2014/02/26/oscars-2014-best-supporting-actress-lupita-nyongo/)) ## Transcript >> I received a letter from a girl and I'd like to share it, just a small part of it with you. Dear Lupita, it reads, I think you're really lucky to be this black, but yet this successful in Hollywood overnight. I was just about to buy Dencia's Whitenicious cream to lighten my skin when you appeared on the world map and saved me. My heart bled a little when I read those words. I could never have guessed that my first job out of school would be so powerful in and of itself and that it would propel me to be such an image of hope in the same way that the women of The Color Purple were to me. I remember a time when I too felt unbeautiful. I put on the TV and only saw pale skin. I got teased and taunted about my night- shaded skin. And my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter- skinned. The morning would come and I would be so excited about seeing my new skin that I would refuse to look down at myself until I was in front of a mirror because I wanted to see my fair face first. And every day I experienced the same disappointment of being just as dark as I had been the day before. I tried to negotiate with God. I told him I would stop stealing sugar cubes at night if he gave me what I wanted, I would listen to my mother's every word-- sitting right there-- and never lose my school sweater again if he just made me a little lighter. But I guess God was unimpressed with my bargaining chips because he never listened. And when I was a teenager, my self- hate grew worse, as you can imagine happens with adolescence. My mother reminded me often that she thought that I was beautiful, but that was no consolation, she's my mother, of course she's supposed to think I am beautiful. And then Alek Wek came on the international scene. A celebrated model, she was dark as night, she was on all of the runways and in every magazine and everyone was talking about how beautiful she was. Even Oprah called her beautiful and that made it a fact. I couldn't believe that people were embracing a woman who looked so much like me, as beautiful. My complexion had always been an obstacle to overcome and all of a sudden Oprah was telling me it wasn't. It was perplexing and I wanted to reject it because I had begun to enjoy the seduction of inadequacy. But a flower couldn't help but bloom inside of me. When I saw Alek I inadvertently saw a reflection of myself that I could not deny. Now, I had a spring in my step because I felt more seen, more appreciated by the far away gatekeepers of beauty. But around me, the preference for light skin prevailed. To the beholders that I thought mattered, I was still unbeautiful. And my mother again would say to me you can't eat beauty, it doesn't feed you, and these words plagued and bothered me; I didn't really understand them until finally I realized that beauty was not a thing that I could acquire or consume, it was something that I just had to be. And what my mother meant when she said you can't eat beauty was that you can't rely on how you look to sustain you. What actually sustains us, what is fundamentally beautiful is compassion for yourself and for those around you. That kind of beauty-- Excuse me-- That kind of beauty inflames the heart and enchants the soul. It is what got Patsey in so much trouble with her master, but it is also what has kept her story alive to this day. We remember the beauty of her spirit even after the beauty of her body has faded away. And so, I hope that my presence on your screens and in magazines may lead you, young girl, on a similar journey. That you will feel the validation of your external beauty, but also get to the deeper business of being beautiful inside. That there is no shade in that beauty. 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