Baller Alert Entertainment & Lifestyle
Last week, Amanda Seales took to her podcast, “Small Doses with Amanda Seales,” to talk the side effects of professionalism, in which she unpacked the dos and don’ts of workplace behavior. As part of the discussion, Seales used the opportunity to name names and call out a colleague for the way, in which, said colleague handled an alleged work event.
The incident, in question, occurred back in September after the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards, during an after-party event in celebration of Black Hollywood. According to Seales, the event was held and hosted by a black woman named Vanessa Anderson, and although the two have never really been friends, Seales felt, as a black woman in Hollywood, she had a right to attend.
But, just moments after her arrival, Seales said she was escorted out, and apparently, her ‘Insecure’ co-stars, including Issa Rae, who works with Anderson for PR purposes, did nothing about it. So, Seales took it upon herself to address it in her professionalism episode.
“A year ago, Issa Rae’s publicist, Vanessa Anderson of AMPR, and some other people, they started doing a Black Emmy Party, so it’s basically like to celebrate Black Hollywood and just give us a space to come and celebrate after we do the HBO Party, the Comedy Central Party, etc, etc,” Seales said, after she described the differences between personal and professional relationships in the workspace, and how informalities cause “shit” to go left without balance.
“Vanessa is somebody who I have absolutely met before…and I have interacted with her on a few occasions, but she has never been nice to me… ever,” Seales said, adding that she arrived at the party with Jill Scott. “She’s always seemed to be bothered simply by my demeanor, my way of communicating with her, etc. At a certain point, it just became well this is not somebody that I need to speak to…..So we don’t.”
Upon her arrival to the party, Seales said Jill Scott’s manager went to the entrance to make their entrance as smooth as possible. But, when the manager approached Anderson, Seales said she pointed in her direction and Seales directed her attention to Scott.
In response, Anderson reportedly said, “Amanda, nobody has time for this right now. I do not have time for this,” to which Seales wondered, “What’s happening?”
Although, at the time, the three were unable to understand the problem, they entered without consequence. That’s when Seales brought the incident to her co-star’s attention, seeing as how Anderson is Rae’s publicist. But, when Seales addressed Anderson’s ‘nastiness,’ Rae kind of brushed it off as an isolated incident between the two, as the event was being held by Anderson, herself.
“So, I left it at that,” Seales said, as she fast forwarded to this year, when she was invited to the same party by Jesse Williams. Despite the fact that she was not really into the party scene, she said she loves a celebration of blackness, so she decided to spread the word and show her face.
This time, Seales arrived with one of her ‘Insecure’ castmates as a plus one, but she also had a friend with her, who wasn’t on the list. But, according to Seales, instead of making a fuss, the girl at the door wrote the friend’s name down, and let the three in. But, just before they made their way in, a “white woman who has a clipboard” pointed at her and said she would not be let in because she wasn’t on the list.
As Seales’ castmate looked for Anderson to sort out the issue, Seales decided to ditch the event altogether. But, as they waited for the car, Janet Jackson’s manager spotted them outside and brought them to the rope. As he tried to introduce Seales, the woman at the door refused, repeating that the actress was not on the list to get in.
As the incident continued, she said she filmed it on Instagram to let her fans know that a white woman denied her entry into a black Emmy party, and she couldn’t understand why. But despite the refusals, Elijah Kelly invited Seales in.
A few moments later, a security guard approached Seales to escort her out, which forced Seales to question the reason behind her removal. But, one of the most frustrating aspects of the night was that Seales noticed an ‘Insecure’ table, filled with her castmates and co-stars.
“So there’s a table for the show I am an actual series regular and a star of but I am not allowed into the party,” Seales said, as she continued to explain that three other guards and a general manager arrived to escort her out. “For the record, nobody made a ruckus for me and the amount of ruckus I make for everybody was literally an eye opening [experience.]”
“It was humiliating,” Seales continued, before addressing fans’ question and concerns about her arrival, despite not being invited. “This party was not at her house. This was not a personal event. This was not a birthday party…It was not a naming ceremony. This was a Hollywood party for Black entertainers and contributors to Hollywood,” she said. “So by nature of that, I am a part of that industry and should be here celebrating with my community.”
“It’s very frustrating to be somebody who’s just trying to do good work and have to deal with this type of unprofessionalism,” she continued. “To have to deal with this type of informality and to deal with this literal type of petty ass f*ckery, and Hollywood is so rife with this.”
After news surfaced of Seales’ story, many took to Twitter to share their own thoughts about the entire ordeal. But, things took a turn for the worse when Seales’ co-star, Sarunas Jackson, spoke out about the incident.
“You can’t be a disrespectful a*s human being and expect people to want to hang out with you,” he said. “It’s quite simple. Sit it out.”
Although Jackson deleted his tweet, others used his tweet to back their case against the actress. But, the backlash didn’t stop Seales from reacting, as she took to her own Instagram to call out Black Twitter for dragging her after she has used her platform to fight for “us.”
“I guess what fascinates me is the excitement of people to be like, ‘She must be a b—h! She’s got to be a b—h! If everyone’s saying she’s a b—h then she must be a b—h!’ I think that’s fascinating to me because I don’t know what value that has in their lives. I think that’s what trips me out about it,” Seales said on Instagram. “I’m not f*ckin’ with Trump, I’m not degrading Black folks, I’m not out here being a Fox News commentator.”
“People legit don’t like me, one, there’s a lot of people who don’t like me because I just really don’t care about their fake phony sh-t and I don’t keep up appearances to make them feel like their fake phony shit is not noticed,” she said. “Two, on an Internet scale, people just don’t like me because a lot of the time they’re misinterpreting shit that I say. And then three, people don’t like me because of their own shit. Four, there’s a bonus, some people don’t like me because of an interaction we had.”
“I could have had a bad day, I could have just been stank that day, or, more often than not, they did some fuckshit and I called them out on it,” Seales said. “Nonetheless, it is fascinating to watch people so enthusiastic about your downfall when you have dedicated your whole life to the upliftment of them. Truly, it is like a paradoxical thing to witness. I’m a sensitive person, but more importantly, I’m an intellectual, so at this point I’m just looking at it like, ‘Well, she must be a bitch! All these people can’t be wrong.’”
“Okay, so then what? So then what? So now we have established that Amanda Seales is a bitch. Now what?” She asked. “See the thing is, I know who I am and I know I’m not a b—h. A b—h is somebody who’s mean for no f–kin’ reason. If I’m stank, nine times out of 10, there’s a reason. You may not be the reason. The reason might be my mood, the reason might be some sh-t I’m going through, the reason might be the person, but there’s always a reason. There’s always something behind my ire. Nonetheless, when people are saying things like, ‘If everybody’s saying she’s like this then that must be what it is and she need to change.’”
“I think you reach a certain point in your life where you’re like — first of all, everybody don’t think I’m a bitch. I’m a quality over quantity person,” she continued. “I think we can all agree that there’s way more trash ass people in this world than there are quality people. The quality people be fuckin’ with me. They do. They be fuckin’ with me heavy. And a lot of the times, I have experienced my whole life, people who have created these opinions and they come back later. But really, the whole point in talking about this is…sometimes you have to take yourself outside of things and you just look at it from the outside and your’e like, wow, this is what people spent their day doing: discussing my existence. And I don’t know if that has any bearing on their support of my work or not but it was just something that was interesting to them. That is fascinating to me in a very real way. Fascinating.”
“But for the record, I am not a bitch. Unless you bitch made. Bu-duh-bump,” she said.
Amanda Seales being upset at the sheer fact that there are some people who don’t like her and – understandably – don’t want her to have access to them or their events/lives is slightly sick & entitled & resembles more of you than y’all will ever realize lol
— ryvn.? (@MuvaPrincess) October 6, 2019
When ya’ll done cracking jokes on Amanda Seales, we should have a real conversation about women blocking other women. It’s alot of fake feminists in Hollywood. The way Issa’s publicist humiliated Amanda speaks volumes about her character.
*I know Amanda has a bad reputation* pic.twitter.com/GIPl4DPXv4— Pyer Moss Stan Account (@_Pattrice) October 5, 2019
the cast of insecure watching amanda seales get carried out of that after party: pic.twitter.com/kk90jKKbgF
— tami roman’s season 2 bob (@s4intky) October 5, 2019
“I’m on Insecure!! Do you not know who I am! I was a member of Floetry!!! I have an HBO special!!! You’ll hear from my lawyer. This is anti-black. Black famous people RSVPs matter”-Amanda Seales pic.twitter.com/U9YlBLfoUC
— No Relation, Esq. (@TheCosby) October 5, 2019
Cast of Insecure realizing the commotion is Amanda Seales getting thrown out the after party. pic.twitter.com/yvZ7ddEzXx
— Goliath’s Lil Brother✡ (@xlcomedy) October 5, 2019
The doorman looking for Amanda Seales name not on the guest list pic.twitter.com/2TCvXJvG7d
— jujoffer (@jujoffer) October 5, 2019
Didn’t Marsha Ambroius punch Amanda Seales in the face one time?!
— tenacious tee. (@TheTDExperience) October 5, 2019
Y’all rocked with Amanda Seales after she falsely accused the NFL dude of sexually harassing her and let her continue as long as she kept saying black men ain’t shit and now bc her antics caused issues with another black woman now it’s an issue?
Fickle minds
— The Unconventionalist (@joshthedavid) October 6, 2019
Amanda Seales sneaking into the Black Emmys Party pic.twitter.com/jp1NiBsIpb
— ????? ???????? (@DiaryOfKeysus) October 5, 2019
Love you Amanda! Keep the faith sistah!