When Liya met money

To her “accomplished”ness supermodel, actress, designer and maternal health advocate, Liya Kebede:

No, Madam, “lemlem” is not the Amharic word for “to bloom” or “to flourish” as you’ve been telling everyone you met. It means, at best, “greenery,” “scenic,” or “fresh” as in “ነዳዩ በምጽዋት ካገኘው ለምለም እንጀራ መካከል ፀጉርና ሳር መቀየጡ ቅር ቢያሰኘውም…”፣ ወዘተ; at worst “fertile” [my best friend, and writer of “Virgins Always Bleed“, is always being asked how many kids she has every time she mentioned that tidbit to foreigners].

It would have been nice if you did your homework, or hired a consultant, or had the humility to ask around before throwing a word out into the fucking idiotic Western hemispher [and letting it stick]. Now that you have, and ruined the meaning of the word for the rest of us, do you have the decency to set things right? Or, at least, change your brand name to the Amharic word you were thinking of when you came up with “ለምለም”: “ማበብ,” “መለምለም,” or “በድሆች ጀርባ ላይ ተንጠላጥሎ መበልፀግ”?!

[If you refused to do this, all the money you made off the wrongly translated word shall be forfeited and you will be sent back to The Runway to make a meager income of hundreds of thousand dollars less a year. Yes, that means no hobnobbing with Jake Gyllenhaal, either].

[Do I sound catty and a tad jelly? So maybe I am. Not all of us are lucky enough to be born in a family like hers, with a face and body like hers, go to the school she did with the family connections she had before she was able to make something of it and be praised as if it was all on her!]

On a serious note, don’t you wish the people whose birth, wealth, beauty endowed them with the right to stand in front of the world in our names had the curiosity God gave a cat to check their facts before running their mouth? [Looking @ you and your comments about Ethiopian women not being allowed to sing in churches, Gigi. So what if it was a slip of the tongue, a very stupid/self-serving/insulting slip of the tongue, from zillions of years ago?! And what if, it appears, you did everything to make up for it including, but not limited to, marrying a guy decades your senior to advance your career and putting Ethiopian Music on the map? የወጋ ቢረሳ የተወጋ አይረሳም! Speaking of stabbing people in the back, do you see Aster Aweke these days?].

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