Do you remember when you met your best friend? Did you guys hit it off instantly or have a rocky road to sisterhood?
For Gabrielle Union and Sanaa Lathan, two beautiful BFFs, they didn’t really get along swimmingly. In an interview with DJ Whoo Kid while promoting Almost Christmas, Union claimed that while they were working on Love and Basketball, Lathan and Omar Epps kept their distance from her. They were dating at the time, so the couple pretty much ignored Union and fellow co-star Boris Kodjoe (their on-screen temporary love interests) when they weren’t filming. Cold world.
What’s interesting is that Epps and Union had to team up again for Almost Christmas.
“I felt like I needed a do-over from Love and Basketball,” she said about Epps during The Whoolywood Shuffle on Shade 45. “He curved me pretty nice to the left as Shawnee Easton.”
“They were like a couple, couple on set,” she continued. “Me and Boris were like newcomers. Nobody talked to us. That’s how we became friends. We’re like, ‘Okay so we’re clearly like the jackasses on this set because nobody is talking to us.’ Omar be lookin’ at Sanaa like, ‘I wish you would slow dance with Boris. Do it! Do the take. Do the take. Do it. Do it.'”
After that less than warm reception, Union decided she didn’t want to be bothered with Lathan. But when the two women encountered each other in Miami a few years later, they were able to move past the icy introduction and become friends.
“It’s funny. Me and Sanaa we became friends. I was doing Bad Boys II in Miami and she was shooting Out of Time. We were staying at the same hotel. But after Love and Basketball I was all, ‘I don’t mess with you. I needed to see all I needed to see.’ She was all like, ‘No, no no!’ So after a couple of cocktails at the Delano, we’ve been BFFs ever since. I was with her last night.”
Interesting side note: Did you know that Union originally auditioned for Lathan’s classic role as Monica?
“As an athlete my whole life, a point guard my whole life, I thought this was a dream role, but I had very little acting experience. I actually auditioned for Sanaa’s role, except of course did not get it because I was not a great actor,” Union told The Huffington Post in 2015. “Gina [Bythewood] was like, ‘OK, you’re not right for Monica, but I think there’s another role …’ ‘Uhhh … the groupie?'”
Wonder if that played a part in the fact that they originally didn’t hit it off. Either way, the two ladies have come a long way in their friendship. Check out Union’s chat with DJ Whoo Kid below and let us know if you can relate. Their convo about her less than pleasant Love and Basketball days starts around the 3:20 mark.
Image via Splash
