Actress Brittany Daniel Breaks Down: Talks Battling Cancer, Dating Keenan Ivory Wayans & Being Only White Woman On ‘The Game’

Brittany Daniel is a survivor. After suddenly leaving BET’s ‘The Game’ three years ago, the actress who portrays character Kelly Pitts announced earlier this year that she was silently battling cancer. After being diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 2011, the 38-year-old Flordia native has returned to the show to stir up trouble. Daniel stopped by ‘Sway In The Morning’ to discuss her cancer battle, returning to the show and often being the only white woman on set. Peep the excerpts below.

Rumors that she dated Keenan Ivory Wayans: 

I was dating Keenan. [I’m not] any longer but we’re really good friends.

We actually worked together and then we dated. So we didn’t work together and date.

I took a leave of absence from the show because I actually went through cancer..I’m in remission now. It was really wild being away from the show because playing Kelly Pitts is one of my most favorite characters I’ve ever played. So being away, I would feel like, ‘I have to finish this character, I have to finish her voice.’ So many of the fans were like, ‘what happened, why did she leave the show?’ It was hard for me to go, ‘Ya’ll I’m sick.’ It was something that I needed to handle privately but I wanted to be able to tell my fans, ‘It’s not that I don’t love ya’ll’. So it’s kinda nice to say this is what I’ve been going through and now I’m back, now I’m able to finish my story line and kinda feel like there’s some completion because Kelly left and it was like, ‘You got a daughter and what happened?’ So this season is great because I’m able to answer a lot of questions that the fans were wondering what happened.

We met before…and she was so sweet, we we’re all friendly…I showed up this season to shoot, she was like ‘We can’t be friends when we’re on set. I can’t like you, you are too nice. Once we’re done with these scenes I can be friendly with you.’ She’s funny, we totally get along.

I don’t even think about that. Honestly, until people say that to me, I just don’t think about that. I don’t see that, I don’t think about it. I just feel at home. My response on Arsenio [Hall] was “I think black people just have more fun”. I don’t mean to say white people don’t have more fun but black people just have more fun.

I like to laugh, cut up and be silly. [Black people] are expressive and I know that’s a generalization…it makes me feel like I have more freedom to be free and more myself. I feel more comfortable sometimes with black people.

A lot of people with lymphoma can have swollen lymph nodes, flu like symptoms, night sweats… I had that but I had low back pain. When you have lymphoma it can manifest in different areas of the body, mine was stage 4 when they found it, so it had manifested in other areas of my body so I had low back pain. It started with low back pain, then I started getting flu like symptoms and then they ended up doing different scans.

Thank god for residuals. My dad was a banker so I’ve always been pretty good with my money, I never spent a lot of money, I wasn’t the bag or purse girl, so I always kinda saved my money. I also moved in with my sister and my mom took care of me, so I was able to kinda save some money too.

(Instagram, Sway In The Morning)
-@missjohnsonp_