Source: FayesVision/WENN.com / WENN
You’ve likely heard by now that after one season of being a judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent, Gabrielle Union was let go. It would come out soon after via report from Variety that Union was actually not brought back because she was outspoken about the toxic workplace culture, which included jokes that were offensive to certain minority groups, including Asian people, and a number of notes about the hairstyles she wore on the series being “too black” for the audience who watches. After that report surfaced and Union received support publicly not just from husband Dwyane Wade, confirming her firing, but also a good chunk of Hollywood and everyday women who started the #BlackHairChallenge in support of her, she issued a statement thanking people for the love.
Among the kind words and support she received, Union’s former co-star, America’s Got Talent host Terry Crews, let her know she would be missed from the show.
And while it’s understandable that he wasn’t going to sacrifice his job by saying too much online, plenty of people were disappointed in Crews’s public response to the situation. They were especially surprised considering that back in 2017, when Crews spoke up about being sexually assaulted by a male high-level Hollywood exec, telling a different kind of #MeToo story and in turn, being criticized by other famous men, Union said she believed and supported him.
With that being said, people on Twitter, Black women especially, didn’t forget that and reminded Crews of such over the holiday weekend. The fact that he’s been outspoken in support of folks like Gina Rodriguez but didn’t have much to offer his co-star didn’t help, either.
https://twitter.com/HopeyVar/status/1200861989570043905
With Crews’s outspoken support or not though, the backlash against the decision of AGT producers to not renew Union’s contract under these alleged shady circumstances has been enough to warrant a newly launched investigation from the performer’s union SAG-AFTRA and a statement from NBC that they were working with the star’s management “to hear more about her concerns.”
We’ll see what is to come of this whole situation. In the meantime though, check out more less than impressed reactions to Crews’s message for Union by hitting the flip:
