Nearly a week ago, actress and host Amanda Seales went live on social media when she arrived to the “Black Emmy Party” only to be turned away by the gatekeeper at the door.
Recently, Seales, 38, went on her podcast Small Doses with Amanda Seales to further discuss the incident. She claimed that actor Elijah Kelley (The New Edition Story) helped Seales get into the party despite the objections of the gatekeeper. But, once inside and before Seales could settle in with the Insecure cast, security was dispatched to escort her out of the venue.
When she asked why she had to leave, security responded that Vanessa Anderson, who was the party organizer and publicist to media mogul Issa Rae, had given the directive. According to Seales, she was not given any further explanation on why she was being kicked out of the party except that Anderson did not want her there. To add salt to the wound, no one from the cast of Insecure stepped in to clear up the misunderstanding on Seales’ behalf. To be fair, it is not clear if the cast even knew what was happening to Seales at the time.
Seales admitted that Anderson has “never been nice to me, ever…She’s always had a certain curtness and she’s always seemed to be bothered by my demeanor…I say hello to her if I see her, but we are not friends.”
Seales also recalls an incident the year before at the Emmys party in which Seales showed up to the party with singer and actress Jill Scott and encountered Anderson at the door when the publicist allegedly exclaimed, “Amanda, nobody has time for this right now, I do not have time for this.”
When Seales got into the party, she met up with Issa Rae (Insecure, Little) and told her that her publicist was being nasty. Seales claims that Rae responded, “That’s just between y’all because this is her party and it’s not really my jurisdiction to tell her how to treat you at her party.”
This week, Insecure cast member Sarunas J. Jackson shared a subliminal message that’s now deleted on Twitter, “You can’t be a disrespectful ass human being and expect people to want to thang out with you. It’s quite simple. Sit it out.”
Seales responded indirectly with a tweet, “Some people like me. Some people don’t. But I do not lie. Have a good day.”
This may just be a strategy to promote the new season of HBO’s Insecure. If so, the idea is genius because not only is the story trending, but people are going to tune in just to watch the interaction of Seales with the rest of the cast. If it’s not a publicity stunt, then clearly, with the added commentary from Jackson, there’s some unresolved issues between cast and staff members.
What do you think about Amanda’s side of the story? Do you think this is a genius PR stunt or there’s real smoke?
The fourth season of Insecure will be returning to HBO in 2020, according to HBO Programming Chief Casey Bloys. The highly popular show was put on pause to accommodate the busy schedule of creator and actress Issa Rae.
Amanda Seales recently did an unboxing of her new book Small Doses: Potent Truths – Everyday Use on Instagram. The book is available for pre-order at www.SmallDosesBook.com.
