TikTok sensation Addison Rae made her debut appearance on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Saturday 27 March. But, after the star performed a series of dances, some backlash sparked over proper credit to the creators.
Rae, 20, appeared on the chat show to discuss and perform her new single, ‘Obsessed’ as well as sitting down with a discussion with Fallon about her budding career. With over 78 million followers and a net worth of $2 million, she is undeniably one of the most successful creators on the platform.
As a dancer, Addison built a lot of her fanbase by performing a range of dances on the app like ‘Savage’, ‘Laffy Taffy’ and ‘Corvette’. However, following her appearance on Fallon’s chat show, which included a segment where Rae “taught” the presenter eight of the most widespread TikTok dancers, the pair have found themselves under fire for not crediting the original creators of the dances mentioned.
Sunny Austin, host of talk show the ‘The View’, said in a Tweet that the lack of credit was “a miss” by Jimmy. “Let’s give credit to black creators,” she Tweeted.
This is a miss @jimmyfallon. Let’s give credit to the black creators…… https://t.co/4fy9p96J1G
— Sunny Hostin (@sunny) March 28, 2021
With a lot of the popular TikTok dances being made by black artists, fans on Twitter argued that Addison appearing to “take credit” for their dances meant that they were being erased.
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https://twitter.com/55mmbae/status/1376045681232596995
Another user on Twitter slammed the decision to have Rae come on Jimmy Fallon to teach the dances rather than the original creators:
So I’m guessing all of the black creators who made these dances up were busy huh? https://t.co/RS6boMNZH8
— He Who Remains (@KoolestKidOut) March 28, 2021
Possibly in response to the backlash, the video now provides credit to the creators of the dances.
Given that Addison Rae has a bigger following than some of the dance’s creators, some fans argue that she is taking advantage of her exposure to take credit: “All these dance trends were created by black people and a lot of them black women,” a fan on Twitter said, “But Addison has the followers so the exposure…you thief.”
Addison has not responded to the backlash, nor has the Tonight Show, although credit is now given in the video description.