Actress Gabourey Sidibe Says She Wasn’t “Allowed to Be Black” During Her Time as a Phone Sex Operator: “We Are Trained to Hate Ourselves”

In the Apple TV+ documentary “Number One on the Call Sheet,” Gabourey Sidibe shared the challenges that Black women face in Hollywood. Even her time before making it big was marked by whitewashing.

In episode 2, “Black Leading Women in Hollywood,” Sidibe recounts her early life and the struggles of navigating a predominantly white industry. She reflects on the time before “Precious,” when she worked as a phone sex operator.

“I got the role of ‘Precious’ when I was 24,” she recalls. “Before that, I was just acting in between whatever it was the rest of my life. And the rest of my life at that point, I was working at a call center as a phone-sex operator.”

Sidibe shares the racial barriers she faced while working in the call center, where “the company was mostly Black women. You’re not at all allowed to be Black on the phone.” She adopted the name “Melody” and, in a high-pitched Valley Girl voice, would speak to clients: “Hi, I’m Melody. How you doin’? Are you good?” Sidibe’s impersonation is both humorous and poignant but highlights the lengths she went to survive in a world that demanded she erase her Black identity.

She concludes, “We are trained to hate ourselves,” but refuses to conform. “Whatever it is that you don’t like about me, I’ll do it harder, and I’ll smile in your face. And that’s what I felt ‘Precious’ needed to be.”