Quinta Brunson Just Proved Betty Boop Was a Black Woman

Emmy-winning creator and actress Quinta Brunson is stepping into one of animation’s most recognizable roles, Betty Boop, the flirty cartoon icon who first appeared in 1930. She’s bringing back the iconic role in a new feature film set to add some color– literally and figuratively— to the character who has largely been drawn as a white woman.

As excitement builds around Betty Boop’s Hollywood return, we’re here to school you on the often untold story of the Black child performer many historians say inspired the character in the first place: Esther Jones.

Known professionally as “Baby Esther,” Jones was a young Black entertainer who performed during the height of the Harlem Renaissance. Little is known about her personal life, but by the late 1920s, she had become famous for her playful “boop-oop-a-doop” scat-style singing and animated stage presence while performing in clubs across the country, including Harlem’s famous Cotton Club, according to All That’s Interesting.

Jones was born in 1919, and by age four, she’d acquired management and begun touring the country. It’s believed that Jones was originally from Chicago, but it was in New York City that she caught the biggest break of her life.

By age seven, Jones began singing under the stage name “Baby Esther,” and the public just couldn’t get enough of her.

A 1928 article shared by Variety praised the young girl saying, “The child is small for her age and said to be an exceptional black-bottom dancer.” It continued, “The crowd in the place continually applauded the little dancer.”

Everything would change, however, when fellow entertainer and singer Helen Kane, a white woman, attended one of Jones’ shows.

According to court records from the time, Kane saw Jones perform in New York before later adopting a remarkably similar baby-voice style in her own act. Kane eventually rose to fame with songs like “I Wanna Be Loved by You,” becoming widely associated with the “boop-boop-a-doop” catchphrase. She never gave Jones credit.

Kane would soon get her karma; however, in the early 1930s, when Betty Boop exploded in popularity. The animated character was essentially a copy-and-paste version of Kane’s well-known singing acts. In 1932, she sued Fleischer Studios, the creators of Betty Boop, for allegedly stealing her image and vocal style, as Harlem World Magazine reported.

During the highly publicized court case, attorneys introduced footage of Baby Esther performing similar scat sounds before Kane had ever popularized them. The evidence weakened Kane’s argument, and she ultimately lost the lawsuit and walked away without a dime in compensation.

Despite the courtroom revelations, Jones also never received recognition or compensation tied to Betty Boop’s success. Historians say her contributions were largely erased from mainstream entertainment history for decades, even as the cartoon character became one of the most enduring symbols of American animation, according to PBS.

Jones went on to live a quiet life, and little is known about her adult life or death. Conflicting reports say Jones died of a drug overdose or that she died shortly after the court trial. Still, her legacy lives on through Betty Boop… whether she gets the proper credit or not.

Historians have increasingly pointed to Baby Esther as part of a larger pattern in which Black artistry was repackaged for white audiences during the Jazz Age and early Hollywood era

Now, with Brunson attached to the new film, many fans online are hoping the project will finally acknowledge the deeper cultural history behind Betty Boop’s creation. Brunson herself has said in a statement that the character carries a “quiet but undeniable impact on culture for nearly a century.”