Toni Braxton Reacts To Kayla Nicole’s Halloween Costume

Kayla Nicole ignited much speculation on social media after dressing as Toni Braxton for Halloween and recreating her look from the favored Y2K single “He Wasn’t Man Enough.” Fans immediately believed Nicole was throwing shade at Taylor Swift and her ex-boyfriend, Travis Kelce, together with her look and through the use of a particular a part of the Grammy winner’s song. Nevertheless, Nicole later clarified that she wasn’t aiming to take shots at anyone particularly. But what does Braxton give it some thought all?

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Braxton weighed in on Nicole’s Halloween costume, giving the 30-year-old the advantage of the doubt.

“I wish to think that she was just paying homage to me and did it for Halloween,” Braxton told Kevin Frazier.

When Frazier clarified that many believed Nicole was quite intentional together with her costume after there was speculation that Swift wrote about her in her last album, “The Life Of A Showgirl,” Braxton had somewhat more to say.

“Oh, that’s bitter,” she said with a smirk and a quiet laugh.

For many who might’ve missed it, Nicole had probably the most talked-about Halloween costumes of 2025, sharing a video of herself in Braxton’s iconic, silver dress from the “He Wasn’t Man Enough” video and flawlessly recreating the choreography.

The part that captured many individuals’s attention, though, was the lyrics Nicole danced over, which said, “What are you considering? / Do you understand about us back then? / Did you understand I dumped your husband, girlfriend? / I’m not considering ’bout him.”

And because the song continued, the chosen lyrics seemed much more pointed, going, “But you married him / Did you understand I made him leave? / Do you understand he begged to stick with me? / He wasn’t man enough for me.”

On TikTok, Nicole’s video has garnered over 300,000 likes, and on Instagram, nearly 350,000.

Braxton even gave her stamp of approval back in October, writing, “You killed it mama!”

Nicole’s post, after all, got here after Swift sang the lyrics, “You could not understand it, why you felt alone / You were in it for real, she was in her phone, and also you were only a pose,” in her latest single, “Opalite.”

Nicole, who dated Kelce on and off from 2017 to 2022, received significant support from the general public, as one user wrote, “She made an entire album obsessing over you, and also you STILL got the last cackle. They will come for us, but won’t ever be us.”

But in a recent podcast episode, Nicole directly responded to the claims that she was shading Swift together with her look, telling her listeners that she’s not “within the business of tearing women down.”

Based on the Pepperdine University alum, she selected to decorate as Braxton for the special holiday due to her continued love for the song and Braxton as an artist.

Weeks after Nicole’s video garnered a lot attention, she found herself on the alternative side of public adoration, facing backlash from social media users over former tweets of hers that had gone viral.

In a few of her old posts, Nicole used horrific language, referring to someone as a “dumb fat Mexican h-e” and mocking an Asian person’s accent.

Nicole also shared reprehensible comments about others’ religion, writing that she’d tell one other person “Buddah [sic] is not real” in the event that they didn’t stop praying.

It didn’t take long for Nicole to deactivate her X account and issue an Instagram statement apologizing for her “ignorant, hurtful, and completely fallacious” language.

“I would like to take a moment to sincerely apologize for the hurtful tweets I posted so a few years ago,” she wrote. “Seeing them resurface last week has been incredibly difficult, and reading them now, I’m ashamed that I ever thought or spoke that way. They were ignorant, hurtful and completely fallacious.”

Nicole added, “The girl I’m today would never use those words or express those sorts of views. Through the years, I’ve seen firsthand how cruel and harmful online hate could be, and I might never wish to add to that world of pain in any form. I actually have since deleted those tweets and my X account entirely, because I refuse to maintain that energy alive or contribute to a cycle of hate.”

Since then, Nicole has been seen at various events, and most recently, she turned heads on the Ebony Power 100 red carpet in a daring yellow dress, a slicked-back ponytail, and striking high heels. “Special moments from a special night,” she captioned the carousel of images, which featured flicks of her with celebs like Lisa Raye McCoy, Shaquille O’Neal, and Minnesota Lynx players, Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman.