Chyna wears a headpiece and choker by H. Crowne
Blac Chyna. It’s a name rooted in hip-hop notoriety and social media fame. As one of rap music’s biggest muses today, Chyna, real name Angela Renée White (soon to be Kardashian), has danced, Instagrammed and hustled her way into pop culture’s epicenter. And with Rob and Chyna, her and fiancé Rob Kardashian’s new, six-part reality series on E! that documents their relationship and pregnancy, it’s safe to assume Chyna Mania is only getting started.
In a town like Hollywood that often prefers to smooth jagged edges and paper over controversial histories, Blac Chyna’s well- known past as a stripper and the unapologetic way she owns her sexuality make her ascent into pop culture’s mainstream all the more thrilling — not unlike her soon-to-be-sister- in-law Kim’s own path. But unlike those famous in-laws, Chyna hasn’t used traditional media to help fuel her rise. She maintains an aura of mystique amidst the feverish attention directed her way. Instead of speaking to the press, she communicates directly with her fans on social media and lets the occasional bold fashion statement do the talking.
On the red carpet at the 2015 MTV VMAs, she and her close friend Amber Rose wore coordinated outfits covered in handwritten slurs, the kind of gendered insults you can find all over their social media pages. “Stripper, slut, ho, all these things people portray us as — we wanted to start a movement, because we’re tired of this double standard where a guy can fuck ten bitches and he’s the man,” Chyna says. “A woman does it and she’s a ho, she’s a slut. We wanted to push the barrier,to own it.” She continues, “You can say mean things about me, but it doesn’t matter, we’re still gonna do us … So what if I was a stripper?”
