‘America’s Got Talent’ Season 11 Winner Grace Vanderwaal Faces Controversy After Posting Dreadlocks Photo On Instagram

“America’s Got Talent” Season 11 winner Grace Vanderwaal was recently criticized for posting a photo of herself in dreadlocks.

After deleting the photo on Instagram, the 12-year-old shared a selfie with a cryptic caption expressing her disappointment over those who thought that she was being racist. The “I Don’t Know My Name” singer added that some people believe that she cannot style her hair in such a way because of her race. In a follow-up post, Vanderwaal reminded her millions of followers to never feel bad for doing something that upsets other people.

Meanwhile, Vanderwaal also deleted a video of herself singing what could have been her newest single. The “Clay” singer shared the video on Instagram just a few days after the lyric video for “Gossip Girl” dropped on her Vevo channel on YouTube. However, unlike the dreadlocks photo, Vanderwaal didn’t explain why she had to take down her original song.

Just last month, Vanderwaal’s EP, “Perfectly Imperfect,” was released on iTunes. A week later, the album rose to the top in music charts.

While speaking with Billboard, the “Light the Sky” singer explained why they decided to release the album before 2017. According to her, she, Simon Cowell and the producers of the EP wanted to strike while the iron was hot. “We didn’t want to release it and have people be like, ‘Oh hey, isn’t that the girl from the show?’ We wanted to keep the momentum going. So almost immediately, we tried to do it as fast as possible, and in a matter of days, this EP was finished,” she said.

All the songs on the album already have their official lyric video, but it is unclear whether or not Vanderwaal will also star in the official music video.