Issa Rae Blasted by ‘Insecure’ Co-Star Amanda Seales Amid Ugly Feud: ‘I Should Have Been Protected By Her’
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Insecure actress Amanda Seales has addressed claims that she was difficult to work with on the HBO comedy-drama and shared her side of the story on her beef with the show’s star and creator, Issa Rae.
Speaking on the latest episode of former footballer Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast, Seales shot down claims that she was a “mean girl” on the Emmy-nominated series. Instead, she blamed Rae for not “protecting” her when it came to behind-the-scenes conflicts.
“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,” Seales said, per Decider.
“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?” she continued. “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. There’s no way for me to be a mean girl in this situation.”
“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,” Seales added.
However, Seales, who played Tiffany DuBois on Insecure from 2016 to 2021, said she never felt protected by Rae in return.
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One specific instance she mentioned happened in 2018 when she claimed Rae’s publicist, Vanessa Anderson, had her removed from a Black Emmys party. The actress said she was barred from the party on two separate occasions and later kicked out by security.
Seales said Rae reached out to her after the event. “She called me and said, ‘Hey, I heard what happened this weekend. I just want you to know I have nothing to do with it,’” Seales said, noting that she asked Rae to speak to Anderson about the situation.
However, nothing changed, according to Seales, who claimed that Anderson started a “smear campaign” against her in the media, alleging that she’d gotten into an altercation at the Emmys event.
“I’ve always protected Issa, however, there’s just been enough instances at this point where I should have been protected by Issa and I wasn’t,” Seals explained. “Now it’s at a point where my protecting of Issa has been turned onto me and people have been using it against me.”
She continued, “I’m looking at Issa because it’s like it is your responsibility. We are both your employees, this is a part of leadership.”
When Sharpe later brought up how Rae has been “very empowering to women,” Seales responded, “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.”
