Kathy Hilton Breaks Her Silence on Mistaking Lizzo for Precious Star Gabourey Sidibe

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' Kathy Hilton is offering up an explanation after confusing Lizzo with Gabourey Sidibe's fictional character from the 2009 film Precious.

By Allison Crist Aug 12, 2022 2:18 PMTags
Watch: Kathy Hilton Breaks Silence After Calling Lizzo "Precious"

The online response to Kathy Hilton's Lizzo blunder was not a pretty sight, but she is attributing the mistake to her vision.

The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star took to Instagram on Aug. 11 amid outrage over her recent Watch What Happens Live appearance. There, while playing a round of "Will Kathy Know Them?"—a game that asked her to identify celebrities using only their photo—Lizzo's face popped up on the big screen only for Kathy to blurt out, "Precious?" while seemingly referring to Gabourey Sidibe's character in the 2009 movie of the same name. 

As the backlash grew, Kathy commented on the Queens of Bravo Instagram account to claim that the WWHL screen was simply too far away. "And my vision is terrible," she continued. "If you recall, I couldn't even make out who Justin Timberlake or Melissa Etheridge was."

(Justin was another celebrity Kathy failed to identify during the game, while Melissa took her by surprise on the latest RHOBH episode, during which Kathy had to ask, "Who the hell is that?")

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The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Season 12 Cast Photos

After Kathy acknowledged her mistake, some were quick to give her the benefit of the doubt, leaving supportive comments that read everything from "Y'all leave my girl alone!" to "I believe her."

Others weren't convinced. "People are always gonna let things slide when it comes to this white woman huh?" one user commented. Wrote another, "lol not knowing who somebody is or not recognizing them is one thing. calling them precious is just a blatantly racist microaggression."

john Tsiavis/Bravo

The comment comes after a source told E! News that Kathy "feels terrible" about the blunder. 

"She gets a little nervous when she is on live TV," the source added. "Kathy is a very sensitive person and would never intentionally hurt anyone's feelings."

A separate source told E!, "Kathy would never want to offend anyone at all. She doesn't know who anyone is."

Gabby and Lizzo have yet to publicly address the incident, but the latter shared a series of steamy bikini pics to Twitter on Aug. 11 with the caption, "Meanwhile...." and a smiling emoji with sunglasses.

(E! and Bravo are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)

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