Issa Rae Trends After Amanda Seales Details Their Fallout During ‘Insecure’ Days: ‘She Wasn’t Empowering To Me, She Didn’t Feel Like I Deserved To Be Protected’

Amanda Seales, Issa Rae

Issa Rae Trends After Amanda Seales Details Their Fallout During ‘Insecure’ Days: ‘She Wasn’t Empowering To Me, She Didn’t Feel Like I Deserved To Be Protected’

Amanda Seales is telling her truth about Issa Rae

The 42-year-old activist, comedian, and actress previously starred in Issa Rae’s hit HBO series Insecure. During an interview on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay that aired on Wednesday (April 24), Amanda Seales broke down her fractured relationship with Issa Rae, 39.

In the clip, Amanda Seales details her history with Issa, like being thrown out of a Black Emmy’s party by Issa’s publicist, Vanessa Anderson, in 2019. At the time, Amanda shared her recount on social media and said Issa later called her, telling her that she never asked her publicist to remove Amanda from the party.

Amanda told Shannon Sharpe that although there was tension between them, she was determined to “protect” Issa.

“So I’ve never talked about this publicly because it has always been incredibly important to me to protect Issa. Because I know that Issa is doing something within this business that so few people get to do. And it’s not something I desire to do. I’m not interested in getting a $100 million production deal. That’s not a life that I want for myself. But I know that her role is very important.”

Amanda added that her decision to protect Issa created backlash for herself as a narrative was spun that she was a “mean girl” on the set of the comedy series.

“There’s a whole narrative that is completely false that people keep spinning. They keep saying, you know, that I’m this mean girl on this set, that I harmed these people on this set. I just want to point out something very basic. How can I be a mean girl on a set that ain’t my set? How? It’s your show. You are my boss. I don’t even have the capacity to be the mean girl here because you can fire me. So there’s no way for me to be a mean girl in this situation. And I know some people that may buck up against, like, the confirmation bias that they’ve created, but it simply is the truth.”

She ultimately said Issa did not protect her, and went as far as refusing to promote her series Get Your Life, which was under Issa’s HOORAE Media production company.

“Like, I put all my money into it, I wrote it, I starred in it, etc. And so I said, ‘Hey, you know, would you mind tweeting to correct this?’ And she just wouldn’t. She wouldn’t promote any of the shows, you know? And I just felt like that was unfortunate. But it didn’t make me, it didn’t change my view of her character.”

Amanda Seales

She noted that Issa also decided not to step in when Anderson attempted to tarnish Amanda’s career.

“So I said, you know, ‘Listen, I am not saying that it’s going to be a problem on set, but I do think it is a problem that you don’t feel that you need to step in.’ And she was like, ‘Well, then we just have a difference in opinion…this is between y’all.'” 

The vibes on set changed for her as her co-stars began to ignore her, said Amanda. 

“Nobody’s saying nothing to me. Everybody knows, because at this time, it’s just the women shooting. Everybody knows what’s going on. They don’t say nothing to me. And that’s just f*cking mean. It’s mean.”

Though she and Issa tried to hash things out multiple times, Amanda said Issa “came out her face at me one time too many.”

Adding:

“She wasn’t empowering to me. She didn’t feel like I was needed. She didn’t feel like I deserved to be protected. I’m only giving a portion of the situation. But that was my experience. And nonetheless, I have still always protected her because I felt like it was my responsibility to do so. But it is not.”

Issa and Amanda were still trending well into Wednesday morning as fans had mixed reactions about Amanda’s remarks.

Authored by: C.J.