Former ‘Glee’ Star Amber Riley ‘Despises’ Being Called Mercedes: I Don’t Answer To It & If You Do It Facetiously I’ll Block You

Former ‘Glee’ Star Amber Riley ‘Despises’ Being Called Mercedes: I Don’t Answer To It & If You Do It Facetiously I’ll Block You

Amber Riley wants everyone to know that she is not Mercedes.

Former Glee actress Amber Riley made a public service announcement of sorts to let her Twitter followers know that she is not her character. In fact, she “despises” being called the character instead of her actual name. She tweeted:

“I despise when ppl call me Mercedes. Put some respect on my name. Call me AMBER or RILEY. It’s wild that I even have to say that. No shade to the show/character that gave me a career, but please stop this shit. I don’t answer to it, and if you do it facetiously I’ll block you.”

She tweeted again:

“I’ve done too much in my career to be reduced to one role. Whether you respect the work I’ve done or not, I don’t really care, BUT basic human decency is to recognize me as a person and use my actual name. Boundaries.”

Some of her followers agreed that not calling her by given name was, indeed, disrespectful, while others felt that the Off-Broadway star is reading too far into it.

One wrote:

“Please go ahead and block me Amber. I love and respect you and always will. You seem to forget that while you put in the hard work to get where you are, you wouldn’t be there without your fans.”

Another wrote:

“The fact that she owes part of her success to her fans doesn’t mean her fans own her or are entitled to anything from her. And you don’t respect her — you’re undermining & talking down to her right now for making an incredibly small but vital & personally meaningful request.”

“I respect your thoughts on this but want to say I don’t believe anyone means any disrespect. Back in the day the OG actors were often called by the names of characters they played. It seemed to be a term of endearment. Later on in their career (after multiple roles), it stopped.”

“tell them I don’t see a lot of your castmates being called their character as much as you are. And the one that IS basically her character isn’t called by that name.”

“I do be calling Lea Michelle rachel but Its because i literally don’t respect her..”

“Talk about Bitin The Hand That Fed You.”

“Amber is HER name given by her parents. NOT Mercedes’. We don’t call Meryl Streep by her character names like ‘Miranda’ etc. she is also famous for dreamgirls … shall we call her Effie? NO we do not and the gentleman saying it’s part of Being an actress. NO it is not.”

“I totally respect and understand your point. However, I also understand that may be some people that just know Mercedes and maybe they don’t want to be disrespectful.”

“Sometimes we shouldn’t mix the professional with the personal, yes I believe, but I think you shouldn’t forget that the popularity you have as Amber Riley was due to the Mercedes character that inspires thousands of young people, honestly I’m very sad about it …”

“Hey y’all. We don’t even call actors by their character names when we’re making the show. It’s a sign of respect. Everything you like about Mercedes was put there by Amber. Mercedes might have parts of Amber, but Amber is not Mercedes.”