Florence Pugh has said she is “truly sorry” for appropriating other cultures in the past.
The Little Women star said that to address racism “we have to look at ourselves and see how we were adding to this problem”.
She said she was “uneducated” and “unread” at the time, adding that “stupid doesn’t even cut it”.
Pugh, 24, said she discussed cultural appropriation with a friend when she was 18 after she had styled her hair into corn rows.
Her friend told her the hairstyle was banned at her school because it is cultural appropriation.
“She began to explain to me what cultural appropriation was, the history and heartbreak over how when black girls do it they’re mocked and judged, but when white girls do it, it’s only then perceived as cool,” she said.
“It was true. I could see how black culture was being so obviously exploited.
“I was defensive and confused, white fragility coming out, plain and simple.”
Pugh said that as a teenager she also braided her hair and painted a hat in the colours of the Jamaican flag to go round to her friend’s house.
“I’m truly sorry to all of you that were offended for years or even just recently,” she said.
“I cannot dismiss the actions I bought into years ago, but I believe that we who were blind to such things must acknowledge them and recognise them as our faults, our ignorance and our white privilege, and I apologise profusely it took this long.”