Willow Smith Tongue Ring: Twitter Shakes Its Head

Willow Smith and her tongue ring has certainly caused a stir as of late. The 11 year-old, whose parts are Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, instantly sent several outraged parents to various social media outlets when she posted a picture via Instagram featuring what appeared to be a metallic ball in the center of her tongue. How could her parents be so irresponsible? Why would anyone let a tween pierce her body? Insert Kyle’s mom here.

Not surprisingly, the piercing is fake, which means that you probably got all worked up over nothing. According to Gossip Cop, the ball is held in place with magnets, which means that nothing was punctured in order to adhere the decoration to the young girl’s tongue. In other words, don’t write any angry letters to the Smith family saying how irresponsible they are for letting their daughter get her body pierced. You’re just going to look silly.

Willow does, however, have a penchant for dying her hair outrageous colors, which her father doesn’t seem to have a problem with. “When you have a little girl, it’s like how can you teach her that you’re in control of her body?” Smith explained to Parade magazine. “If I teach her that I’m in charge of whether or not she can touch her hair, she’s going to replace me with some other man when she goes out in the world.”

Despite the fact that Willow’s tongue piercing is nothing to get worked up about, some folks on Twitter have weighed in on the issue. Their outrage is palpable. You can find an amusing assortment of their 140-character opinions below. If nothing else, this has been an excellent example of gross misinformation in the age of social media.