Tomi Adeyemi has plenty to say about the Children of Blood and Bone movie, except the one thing everyone actually wants to know, which is what happened to her. The author of the bestselling novel posted a video this week tearing into the film adaptation, and instead of clearing anything up, she left fans staring at their screens trying to figure out what she was even telling them.
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Here is what set it off. The trailer dropped and the trailer got real love online. A day later, Adeyemi got on Threads and TikTok with a roughly five minute video that read nothing like a proud author promoting her project. She called the movie “the worst thing I’ve ever had to live through,” said she never wants to hear about it again, and made it clear she will not be watching the adaptation of her own book. This is the same woman who helped write the script and was attached as an executive producer, so watching her turn on it this hard caught everybody off guard.
The part that has people talking is what she refused to say. Tomi Adeyemi told her followers she would not speak on what she went through to write the young adult trilogy, and she would not speak on what she endured to get the movie made either. What she would talk about, she said, was what happened after she walked off the set. She described leaving the set of her own film “hyperventilating and sobbing,” and said she came back to America and dealt with severe physical pain and panic attacks so bad she knew right then she would never be able to watch the finished movie. She also said she is “still being antagonized behind the scenes.”
That is a lot of smoke with no fire that anyone can point to, and it is the whole reason the internet is confused. She keeps describing the aftermath of something terrible without ever naming the something. So people are left filling in the blanks themselves, and most of them have been pointing at Amandla Stenberg, who plays Princess Amari in the film. Adeyemi has fed that read without confirming it. In an earlier post she shared what she said was a message she sent Stenberg that read, “Do not ever use my name in an interview or video again,” followed by “Do not text me. Do not call me,” and a screenshot showing she had blocked the contact.
Still, she never actually says the two of them fell out, or why, and that silence is exactly what has everyone speculating. What makes it more tangled is that Stenberg has spoken warmly about Adeyemi in the past, recalling a moment where the author told her that watching her get cast as Rue in The Hunger Games as a little girl, and take racist abuse for it, was part of what inspired the series. Fans who remember that bond cannot square it with the cold message and the talk of being antagonized, and Adeyemi is not connecting those dots for them.
Then she scrambled the message one more time. After all of that, she replied to a commenter who seemed heartbroken by the video and said she does not mind anyone going to watch the film. So the same post that frames the movie as a source of real trauma also tells fans it is fine to go support it in theaters. She even called posting the video “probably useless” while posting a five minute video, and said she does not wish to speak on it anymore in the middle of speaking on it. Every time she gets close to clarity, she pulls back.
Underneath the confusion is a person describing genuine distress. Adeyemi, who is 32, is talking about panic attacks and physical pain tied to whatever went down, and she said staying silent about it was making it worse, which is the reason she spoke at all. Even her explanation for going public came out conflicted, since she said she knew it might be pointless but felt she had to get ahead of it before fans see her out promoting a new book.
Representatives for Adeyemi, Paramount, and director Gina Prince-Bythewood have not commented, so her video is the only version of events out right now, and it is one that raises its hand and lowers it at the same time. Children of Blood and Bone still hits theaters January 15, 2027, on schedule, with or without its author’s blessing. The book that made her a star is about to become one of the biggest movies of the year, and the person who dreamed it up says she cannot bring herself to watch it. She told everyone that much. What she has not told anyone is why.
