Source: John Shearer / Getty
When the cast for the upcoming “Salt N Pepa” biopic was announced, people had a lot to say about the actresses chosen to portray the iconic group members. Someone tweeted that Lifetime had cast three Salts, meaning that all the actresses were lighter complected and not an accurate reflection of the women.
https://twitter.com/aja_nikol/status/1201035724461613056
https://twitter.com/lovekeke1992/status/1192594978083618817
But recently, Pepa and her daughter Egypt Criss, whose father is Treach from Naughty By Nature appeared on “The Real.” Apparently, Egypt, who is darker complected and looks a lot like her mother, shared that she auditioned for the role.
Adrienne: I heard that you wanted Egypt to play you. Is that going to happen?
Pepa: Well, Egypt did audition for the role to play me and…
Egypt: And so, everything has to be perfect. So, I didn’t get to play her but I am still in the movie.
Pepa: But let me tell you the funny thing, when I was prepping her to play me, I was like practicing with her, ‘This is what I did then. This is how it happened.’ Because it was my story. When she went for the audition because you know I’m going to let her go through the whole story. She came back out like, ‘Mom, everything you taught me was wrong.’
Egypt: …Was the opposite. She was like, ‘Oh, but it’s me though.’ I was like, ‘They didn’t want it like that.’ It was the opposite. I was like ‘Oh, so never mind.’
Interesting. I don’t know if Egypt’s performance was truly off or the network had an incentive to work with lighter-skinned actresses. Either way, we’ll see how the performance comes together in the biopic.
During the interview, Pepa also spoke about her legal battle with DJ Spinderella.
“I just want to add, sharing that her seeing the Spinderella thing—one thing with this business, you have to take the good with the bad. And unfortunately, that part of it rears it’s ugly head. You know, you get into lawsuits and things like that, unfortunately. At this point, we’re at a place we worked it out and we feel good about it. I hope that Spinderella-I want to see her and I hope she speaks back or she might say, ‘Go to hell!’ But I hope not. I would love to say ‘What’s up’ to her after this because I know how this business can do us. I want to say, ‘Ok, what’s up sis?’ We went through the court system and its at the resolution point. It was just throughout times— a lot of time they ask for Salt N Pepa and not Spinderella and it’s hard. She wants to say, ‘No, don’t do this.’ I’m doing it…I just want to add that Salt N Pepa took our money $1.6 million and gave it to her as a sister. I fight for mine.”
You can watch the full interview in the video below.
