In a Facebook post, the model, who graces the cover of Donald Glover's alter-ego's 2016 'Awaken, My Love!' album, additionally claims that the singer took advantage of her.
- Dec 28, 2023
AceShowbiz - Giannina Antonette Oteto, who was the model on the cover of Childish Gambino's (Donald Glover) 2016 "Awaken, My Love!" album, spoke out against the artist. In a Facebook post, the model accused the singer of taking advantage of her and giving her "low pay" following the gig.
"Being able to hold an album that I'm on the cover of," Oteto captioned the post, which has since been deleted, alongside a picture of her holding a vinyl pressing of Childish Gambino's album. "And having my bestie mom next to me to celebrate! My number 1 cheerleader!"
She continued, "This album has been so hard for me to celebrate for many reasons, and for years I resented it even. It put me through a lot, but finally, being able to celebrate it means a lot! Update: I resented it because myself, the makeup artist, and stylist (all black women) were [taken] advantage of and lied to."
"We received low pay. [They] promised residuals. But [we] never received anything," she noted. "The only person who received residuals was a white woman who created the headpiece even though she was not on set to work on this (but she also deserves it)," she said of Laura Wass.
"After years of lies and silence, then finding out statute of limitation complications… it's been an exhausting, emotional, and overall sad thing to deal with. So it took so much from me, especially the fact that we all worked on it with so much love and being proud to represent black artists. All of my lawyers' communications have been ignored by [Childish Gambino] and his team. #bittersweet," so she concluded.
Fans had mixed responses to Oteto's post. One said, "Residuals for an album cover image?? Surely not, I've never heard of that in the history of music. Why would a musician give a cut to someone Residuals for an album cover image?? Surely not, I've never heard of that in the history of music. Why would a musician give a cut to someone."
"Sounds like she couldn't book another job in the last 5yrs and is looking for a way to get a nice paycheck," another wrote. Echoing the sentiment, another user said, "She wants attention and more jobs and bet she signed on a contract before doing the job." However, one person defended the model by saying, "you guys are so weird saying she wants attention like [crying emojis] leave her alone."
Childish Gambino has yet to comment on the matter.
