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This past fall, Karrueche Tran stopped by the Angie Martinez show to promote the second season of Claws and during the interview the actress touched on her disappointment with her appearance on Iyanla: Fix My Life in 2015. But according to Iyanla Vanzant, Karrueche failed to speak up about any issues with appearing on the series during the taping.
It was actually Karrueche’s manager, Jacob, who expressed the most angst with the life coach after Angie said she felt like Iyanla bullied the 29-year-old on her radio show. According to Jacob, it wasn’t Iyanla’s job to try to “fix” Karrueche because she was expecting to do a sit down interview with the inspirational speaker, not film an episode of her OWN TV show. “That’s what she thinks she can do,” Jacob said of the premise of Fix My Life before claiming it was Iyanla who reached out to Karrueche’s team to tape the show. “We got receipts,” he said. “[Iyanla] puts on this idea that she’s trying to help people, and she’s only trying to get ratings…it was only designed as an interview [not a Fix My Life episode].”
With the fifth season of Fix My Life returning to OWN this Saturday, I asked Iyanla how she felt about these accusations that’ve been heralded against her and before I could even finish my question she said in no certain terms the allegations were lies.
“I told Karrueche Tran last July at the Essence Music Festival she never raised that issue with me,” Iyanla explained during a phone interview. “They came to Fix My Life to expose her. They wanted her to become a Kim Kardashian through her exposure on my show and it didn’t work because they forgot who I am. They thought they were going to come in my show and run their program and they didn’t.
“In the middle of the interview, when [Jacob] started giving directions about what I could and couldn’t say — this was not Karrueche, this is her manager — I don’t know, maybe she has a little more cojones now, but he’s making her career for her. What is Karrueche and what’s him?”
When Jacob spoke to Angie, he claimed he told Iyanla to leave when she began asking Karrueche questions that made her uncomfortable, but the TV host said she walked away from the taping on her own volition.
“[He]came in the room and started directing about what she couldn’t answer — I left! She didn’t leave, I left! So tell him if he’s going to tell it, tell it all because I am not the one to lie on. I am not the one. If he wants to have a public discussion of that we can do that; don’t lie on me.”
As for the claims her people reached out to Karrueche’s team, Iyanla said that’s a lie as well. “They came to me. [Jacob] thought [Karrueche] telling her story was going to diminish and demean Chris Brown and stop her from going some place where she got anyway,” she said.
And while there may be two different interpretations as to how things transpired during the show taping three years ago, Iyanla said she still supports Karrueche and is proud of her success.
“I’m glad she got Claws. I support all of the young people. I support them all. It doesn’t matter to me who they are — that they are there and they’ve got in their place, but don’t step in my place to get there.”
Season 5 of Iyanla: Fix My Life debuts Saturday, March 3 at 9 pm ET/PT on OWN.
