[Video] Gabourey Sidibe Confronts Raven-Symoné on Her Own Podcast: Did You Tell People Not to Be Friends With Me?
American actress Gabourey Sidibe recently appeared on Tea Time with Raven & Miranda, the podcast hosted by Raven-Symoné and her wife Miranda Maday, and asked Raven face to face about their time working together on Empire more than a decade ago, saying she had long believed Raven did not like her. After the episode was released on November 5, clips of the confrontation spread on Threads and Instagram, with one compilation post drawing about 16,000 likes, and Hot 97, Just Jared, Baller Alert and other outlets followed up on November 6 and 7.
According to multiple outlets' accounts of the episode, Sidibe said she had felt Raven treated her as if she did not like her. She said she had been told Raven made some people promise not to be friends with her; the names she mentioned were censored in the episode. She also recalled a dinner in Chicago during their Empire period when she felt Raven was put off by her presence. Sidibe played series regular Becky Williams on the show, while Raven guest-starred as Olivia in its first season in 2015.
Raven did not acknowledge ever making anyone promise to stay away from Sidibe. Baller Alert noted that the claim has not been independently substantiated; Raven said what she might have said at the time was, "Don't bring her around me." Co-host Maday said Raven could sometimes come across as petty or mean, but doubted there had been any orchestrated blackballing.
Raven admitted on the episode that she had felt jealous of Sidibe at the time. She said that when Sidibe was embraced by the industry after her rapid rise with the 2009 film Precious, she thought of her own years of being refused by designers over her body and not receiving the same acceptance, and that she carried a chip on her shoulder. She said she appreciated Sidibe for knocking down doors for women of color, and offered a "my bad" for her past behavior. The three suggested that some of the more specific details would be settled in private.
Sidibe was born on May 6, 1983, and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for Precious; Raven-Symoné was born on December 10, 1985, and became a household name on the Disney Channel series That's So Raven. The full episode is available on the podcast's official YouTube channel, and the video on this page is that episode.
Source: Tea Time with Raven & Miranda podcast
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: Gabourey Sidibe本人资料图（Greg Hernandez摄，CC BY 2.0，经Wikimedia Commons；2010年摄，非本次事件现场图）
