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It's a hard life when you're unhappy about being mistaken for A-list superstar Scarlett Johansson!
Russian model and TikTok star Yekaterina “Kate” Shumskaya (24) said that while she's enjoyed the attention she's had from her startling resemblance to the Black Widow star, now she “wants to live my own life, not Scarlett's”.
“There are people on the internet who confuse me with Scarlett, but I’m not pretending to be her,” adds the former sales manager who has been earning a healthy living from her genetic good fortune, her 10 million TikTok followers and 1,1 million Instagram fans.
Kate moved to Moscow earlier this year to become a model, after giving up her job as a sales manager for a construction company in her hometown.
“I had enough of my job, it didn’t bring in the income I felt I deserved,” she says.
“I woke up one morning and thought, 'My youth is passing me by, and soon, no one will even notice me'.”
So far, though, her efforts to make a name for herself, as herself, have been in vain.
“On social networks I am often complimented for the excellent acting in Black Widow.”
Her followers often ask if she's ever met or spoken to Scarlett (37), and while Kate says she doesn't know how to respond to that question, she would love to meet the actress.
“I'd love one day to film a series of videos of me travelling to America to meet Scarlett.”
Kate says she was first compared to Scarlett when she was at school.
“Some schoolfriends came up to me when I was around 12 years old and showed me a photo and I was like, ‘Is that me?’” she recalls.
“They said, 'No, it's Scarlett Johansson when she was a child', and I was really taken aback. So I've known I look like her for a while, but I didn't really think anything of it.”
The downside of being a popular celebrity lookalike, said Kate, is that when Scarlett is in trouble with fans, she is too.
The actress came under fire in 2017 for her role in the adaptation of Ghost in the Shell, when she and the filmmakers were accused of whitewashing, by casting her as an Asian character.
When Kate posted pictures and video of herself cosplaying Scarlett's character, she was met with death threats.
“Some people said, 'Let's kill her' when I attempted to cosplay Scarlett's character. People from all over the world dress up as that character, but they decided to attack me because I'm a lookalike. It was very unpleasant.”
Kate said she could imagine herself becoming a professional cosplayer – a celeb lookalike who dresses up as popular characters – despite her scary experiences, but she would have to do that in the US, Europe or South America.
“A career as a cosplayer in Russia doesn't really exist, so I would like to visit these other places – although I wouldn't live there permanently.”
