Where Is Rachel Dolezal Now? What to Know About the Former NAACP Leader Now Known as Nkechi Diallo

Nkechi Diallo, Rachel Dolezal’s ex, is back in the public eye after the first controversy in 2015.

The former NAACP official was accused of lying about her race in June 2015 after she claimed she was black when she was actually born to a white mother and father. Her parents, Ruthanne and Larry Dolezal, first announced her to local media, telling Spokane Spokesman-Review that their daughter began to “mask” after her family adopted four African-American children.

“It’s very sad that Rachel wasn’t just her,” said Ruthanne, who hadn’t spoken to her daughter in years at the time. “Her effectiveness in fighting for the African-American community would have been much more sustainable and would have been more effective if she had just been honest with everyone.”

Diallo vehemently denied the allegations, telling the paper that the issue was “not as easy as it seems.”

“There’s a lot of complexity … and I don’t know if everyone would understand that,” she said, before adding, “We’re all from the African continent.”

Years later, Diallo changed her name and in February 2024, she was fired as a teacher in the Tucson, Arizona school district after administrators found her OnlyFans account.

From her original controversy to where she ended up in the years that followed, here’s everything you need to know about where the woman formerly known as Rachel Dolezal is now.

How did Diallo first cause controversy?

Rachel Dolezal before June 2015. Nicholas K. Geranios/AP

In June 2015, Diallo’s local newspaper in Spokane, Washington broke the news that she was not as black as she claimed. At the time, Diallo was head of the NAACP’s regional chapter.

“Unfortunately, she was not born African-American,” said Larry, her father. The Washington Post. “She is our daughter from birth. And so it is.”

Diallo has denied her parents’ accusations, claiming that they may not even be her real biological parents. Instead, she pointed to Albert Wilkerson, a black man, as her potential father, although he denied the claims.

“Up to this point, I know who raised me,” Diallo said in an interview with NBC Evening News. “I didn’t go for a DNA test. There is no biological proof that Larry and Ruthanne are my biological parents.”

She added that despite the birth certificate with the names Larry and Ruthanne, she still doubts her biological heritage.

“I’m not necessarily saying that I can prove that they’re not, but I don’t know that I can actually prove that they are,” she continued. “I mean, the birth certificate was issued a month and a half after I was born. There must have been no medical witnesses to my birth. It was in the forest.”

Her family denied that anyone in Diallo’s life could confirm that the Dolezals were indeed her parents, and that her grandparents were even present at her birth. Larry told PEOPLE at the time that he was sure if she took a DNA test, it would prove her relationship with him.

“If anyone takes her for that bluff, it will be easy to prove that she is our biological daughter,” Larry wrote in a statement to PEOPLE.

Diallo was kicked out when investigative reporter Jeff Selle of Idaho Coeur d’Alene Press noted that she had once again filed a report of a racially motivated hate crime, which he noted had occurred many times in the past, and the claims were never substantiated.

“There wasn’t a spate of hate crimes until she came along,” Selle told PEOPLE. “And now that it’s supposedly happening in Spokane, I said, ‘This looks fishy.’ ”

He did a little digging and found her parents, and the story started from there.

What did her family say about the controversy?

Rachel Dolezal with her husband and family, including parents Ruthanne and Larry, as well as four younger siblings. The Dolezel Family/Splash News

Although initially reluctant to speak out, Larry and Ruthanne remained steadfast in their claims that Diallo was their daughter and had no black ancestry.

“She’s not rational in what she’s saying,” Ruthanne said Seattle Times.

Larry added: “She has so much to offer and so many positive experiences that she wouldn’t necessarily lie. Her advocacy does not excuse or excuse her for misrepresenting her ethnicity.”

One of Diallo’s siblings, Ezra, who is Black, said Buzzfeed that his sister’s claims that the other race was “basically blackface,” before adding that she had asked him to cover for her in the past.

“She just said to me, ‘Here, they’ll consider me black, and I have a black father. Don’t unmask me,’ he said.

He theorized that the reason he thinks she lied is because while she was a student at Howard University, she felt discriminated against because she was white. He explained that Diallo used to tell them that the teachers would treat her differently and act like they didn’t want her there.

Ezra said Diallo’s claims that her parents were abusive were untrue and that she was “treated very well” growing up. Like Sella, he did not believe that she was the subject of racist attacks.

“She deliberately made herself a martyr so that people would feel sorry for her and help her,” he said.

“It’s like what psychologists call self-hatred,” he continued. “She had no reason not to love herself as a white woman. She was a great artist and could have achieved everything she did if she had stayed the same.”

Ezra confirmed that at that time he was estranged from his sister and that she had no contact with their parents either.

What happened to her after she was caught?

Rachel Dolezal in a television appearance. Eric Parise/Warner Bros.

Diallo resigned as president of her NAACP chapter and also lost her part-time teaching job at Eastern Washington University amid the controversy.

“I have to figure it out before Aug. 1, because my last paycheck was about $1,800 in June,” Diallo said vanity fair five weeks after the scandal broke. “[I lost] friends and jobs and work and – oh my god – so much at the same time.”

However, she doubled down on her claims and continued to state that she identified as black, following her earliest memories of black experiences during an interview with Today show.

Diallo explained that she identified racially as “human” and culturally as black. “I drew self-portraits with brown crayons instead of peach crayons,” she said of her childhood years. “That’s how I presented myself.”

In his interview with vanity fairDiallo said she doesn’t think she misled or intentionally misled anyone, despite making false claims about her father’s identity and asking her brother to cover for her.

“If people feel misled or cheated, then I’m sorry they feel that way, but I believe it’s more because of their definition and construction of race in their own minds than because of my integrity or honesty, because I wouldn’t say I’m African-American myself. , but I would Say I’m black, and there’s a difference in those terms,” ​​she said.

Looking to the future, Diallo said she is working on amending the custody agreement with her ex-husband so she can leave Spokane, as well as considering writing a book. She also made money styling black hair, taking braids and braiding appointments three times a week.

Why did she change her name?

Rachel Dolezal after her racial controversy came to light. (Colin Mulvany/The Spokesman-Review/AP

Diallo legally changed her name in March 2017 from Rachel Dolezal to Nkechi Amare Diallo, which has African roots, according to Reuters. In an interview with Guard that same month, Diallo opened up about how she struggled to find her footing after being cast as White.

She explained that she couldn’t find a new job, even something like working in a supermarket, after applying to more than 100. She said she applied for a job where she used to teach, but her former colleagues pretended not to know her. .

After turning down her only offers in reality TV and porn, Diallo used food stamps to pay for herself and her children and relied on a friend to help her with rent, telling the outlet she expected to be homeless within a month days.

“I really felt like I had to change my legal name to be visible because of my qualifications and experience, not just because of the tabloid publicity I got in 2015,” she said on Today show the same month. “When applying for jobs, people just looked at ‘Rachel Dolezal’ and didn’t pay attention to the breadth of experience and qualifications that I have.”

What happened after the scandal?

Cover of Rachel Dolezal’s book, “In Full Color: Finding Your Place in a Black and White World.”.

Two years after her life was uprooted, Diallo wrote a memoir, In full color: Finding your place in a black and white worldhowever, she had difficulty finding a publisher willing to implement it.

“You know, the book was hard to write, for sure,” Savannah Guthrie said on Today show. “But I felt like it was a little forced in terms of having to tell the whole truth about my life and the whole story.”

Diallo also had a son that year, she revealed, so her focus was on feeding the family, but it was a “challenge” from all the media attention.

“But I am 100% committed to taking care of my children,” she added. “And finding my way back to the activist work I’m so passionate about.”

Years later, in 2021, Diallo appeared on Show in the Tamron hall where she opened up about how her struggles continued, even after moving to Tucson, Arizona in 2020. She said she had to create her own work from hair braiding to painting and even giving pep talks on Cameo, a website where people can pay celebrities or influencers to record a message.

“I started applying for all the things I was qualified for, and after interviews and rejections I even applied for jobs that didn’t require a degree – like a hotel maid, working in a casino – I couldn’t get any of those jobs,” she said in the show.

Where is Diallo now?

Rachel Dolezal after her controversy came to light. Tyler Tjomsland/The Spokesman-Review/AP

In February 2024, Diallo made headlines again for being fired from her job as a teacher in the Catalina Foothills School District in Tucson after administrators found out about her OnlyFans account.

“We only became aware of Ms. Nkechi Diallo’s OnlyFans social media posts yesterday afternoon,” Julie Farbarik, spokeswoman for Catalina Foothills Unified School District #16, said in a statement to PEOPLE. “Her posts are in violation of our district’s ‘Use of Social Media by District Employees’ policy and our staff ethics policy. She is no longer employed by the Catalina Foothills School District.”

According to Arizona Daily StarDiallo was hired as an after-school instructor on August 9, 2023, with a contract set to expire on May 24, 2024. She worked with students in grades K-5 and was also a substitute teacher.

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Source: HIS Education