amanda seales
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Issa Rae confirmed that she has no interest in working with Amanda Seales in a recent appearance in New York.
It looks as if there will be no future collaborations between Insecure star and writer Issa Rae and former co-star Amanda Seales, based on comments Rae recently made. The Breakfast Club aired comments that were recorded at an event for Viarae, the star’s prosecco brand, which was held in Brooklyn, New York. In the clip, Rae was asked if there was anyone whom she would never work with again. “I mean, anybody who’s on a podcast to talk shit about me,” she responded at the 2:03 mark, adding: “I’ve had great experiences with everybody I’ve worked with though. So for the most part, like, I’m always grateful when people come back.”
The audience immediately went into a frenzy, realizing that Rae was likely referring to Seales, who in her appearance on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast in April said she was done protecting Issa because she felt she wasn’t vested in the best interests of Black women overall. Seales referred to the 2019 incident between her and Rae’s publicist, Vanessa Anderson, when Anderson requested that Seales be removed from an Emmy Awards party Rae was hosting. Seales then recalled that Rae called her directly to express that the ejection was not her doing and arranged a phone call between Anderson and Seales to patch things up.
Seales would go on to state that Rae’s failure to promote her show, Get Your Life (which was under Rae’s HOORAE Media) and Anderson initiating a “smear campaign” against her that Rae didn’t intervene in left tensions on the Insecure set heightened and made her feel unprotected while there.
“They keep saying, you know, that I’m this mean girl on this set, that I harmed these people on this set,” Seales said. “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,” she added, continuing: “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.”
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In a new interview, Amanda Seales opens up about her latest comedy special, her deepening interest in politics and more.
Comedy that makes you think is one way Amanda Seales has made her mark, from her role on the hit HBO series Insecure to her stand-up specials to her Small Doses podcast. As her latest documentary comedy special, In Amanda We Trust is now available to the public, Seales is utilizing her gift for keeping the Black community engaged and expounded on the special’s message in an interview with Blavity.
When asked about the idea of having more of a documentary feel for the special, Amanda Seales explained that what they had for it originally wasn’t up to snuff. “So I decided that I needed to just make an executive decision,” she began, “and I decided we’re just going to make this part of what was going to be interstitials and just kind of segments that will go in between the stand-up. I made the decision to make that the entire project. And it was the right decision.”
Seales also gave her thoughts on how many speculated that she was considering running for political office, jokingly saying: “Girl, I had politicians texting me. I had people in office DM’ing me like, ‘Hey girl, I don’t know if this is what it is, but I got your back.’” She would ultimately say that she doesn’t have political aspirations. “I don’t believe in really never say never, but sitting right here on this call, that’s just not something I aspire to do. I really want to feel I was put here on this earth in this particular lifetime to use my comedy and my art and just my voice as a bullhorn to lift up the work of others who do feel it is their calling to be in politics.”
The conversation also veered into her recent choice of guests for her Small Doses podcast being from the world of reality television. When asked if she’d interview a troubled celebrity such as Chrisean Rock, Seales said she would do it from a place of empathy and would pose questions that would inform her audience about that person. “But anytime I’m in conversation, I’m going to do my best to make sure that my audience leaves, like Denzel, with something. I’m leaving here with something,” she said.
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