A soap opera actress named Nancy Lee Grahn came for Viola Davis & the internet reacted. Grahn has now apologized. [Buzzfeed]
John Oliver rocked my world last night at the Emmys when he went on an anti-Alex Trebek rant. I love him, you guys. [Pajiba]
Patti LaBelle will shut you down properly. [Dlisted]
Taraji P. Henson did not want Terrence Howard’s kiss. [LaineyGossip]
Stephen Colbert is getting into the lifestyle brand business. [OMG Blog]
Social media photos from the Emmys. [Wonderwall]
Emily Ratajkowski wears glasses. Who knew? [Moe Jackson]
The royal round-up, including a photo of Queen Letizia! [Go Fug Yourself]
Were you wondering why some celebs wore green ribbons? [Starcasm]
Ted Nugent is still saying words about President Obama. [Uproxx]
Kourtney Kardashian’s son Mason is getting so big. [I’m Not Obsessed]
LeBron James has a great Instagram. [A Socialite Life]
Dear Nancy Lee Grahn……… have a perpetual seat.
I love John Oliver 😉
She’s just jealuos because Viola is close to getting an EGOT.
I agree, Viola Davis will get her Oscar win sooner than anyone thinks, to complete her triple crown. She is my Black Queen and I salute her.
Nancy whatever her name is must be insane if she thinks any African Anerican actresses , have a easy way..
Viola was speaking Truth. Viola has lived this truth.
Nancy whatever her name is, needs to take a chill pill and step away from the computer.
Don’t drink and text. Stay in your lane stop swerving.
My first thought as well. The only question would be which box of red or white envy was fueling this self-pity binge of bitterness.
Just re- read her twits she thinks she is as talented as Viola poor thing. If she was she would be like Jillian moore. Wow she actually thinks she’s as talented as Viola.
She is giving me the WORST second hand embarrassment! And she had sooo many tweets…trying to make it sound better and just sounding worse and worse *CRINGE* STOP DIGGING A DEEPER HOLE DARN IT. I can’t handle when other people humiliate themselves this way. I don’t know why but it actually makes me so phsyically uncomfortable it’s as if it was myself. Anyone else have this problem?!?!?! UGH still cringing.
Oh the saltiness…
Poor woman just couldn’t stop herself from hopping on Twitter to proclaim Viola has never been discriminated against as quickly as possible while singing her #allactressesmatter bull.
#bishbye #prayingforyourmentions #probablythinksAhmed’sclockwasabombtoo
And now people are crying over how black people are being so mean to the bigot, as if she’s innocent in this. Damsel in distress.
I don’t know what on earth she was thinking with that “she’s never been discriminated against” comment. HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND!?!?!?!?!?
I was really shocked to read her tweet saying that Viola is an elite, brilliant performer so she’s never experienced discrimination. Seriously??
Yeah and this woman says she’s for women’s rights? Just as a woman alone, Viola has experienced discrimination…now add in the fact that she’s African American and the discrimination goes off the charts.
Viola also grew up seriously poor. Like going hungry and having rats in her house poor. It’s a testament to both her talent and her strength to become as successful as she is. How a person can be anything but moved by her historic win is beyond me. I don’t like her show but I love her, so Viola for all the awards.
How anyone can say whether or not someone else has experienced discrimination is beyond me. Her overreach is breathtaking.
This is so true, you never know what someone else has experienced. They don’t even know each other and this idiot is proclaiming to know Viola’s life? Just no. Especially when Viola herself HAS talked about the struggles and discrimination she’s faced in the industry and life in general.
That part was the worst part of all! LIKE WHAT WAS SHE THINKING?!?!
Bored and wanted attention. And today is Monday.
Oh Nancy. SMH
I think she may be bitter about never progressing out of daytime tv. I just sense there’s some jealousy behind those tweets. Like she sees Viola Davis as being part of this lucky elite group while she’s stuck toiling in Port Charles or something. I dunno.
I’m disappointed in you Alexis Davis.
My take is she was insinuating reverse discrimination. Heaven forbid she accept she’s not as good an actress as Davis so it wouldn’t matter what color she is because the roles still wouldn’t be there. It’s one thing to be a young actress starting on soaps, but if you’re in your 40s and haven’t moved on and you’re not the star of the soap, chances are you’re just not a very good actress.
Even if Viola Davis didn’t exist, some other white actress would be taking her place, so it’s not like the lady from General Hospital would have a different career than she has already, so I don’t get her thinking at all.
Wow I hope she’s not implying reverse discrimination. I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time and one reason is because she’s such an outspoken progressive and feminist. But sadly that doesn’t mean she’s immune from thoughts like that. 🙁
And she actually is a really good actress. Better than most on soaps and better than many primetime actors IMO. But nothing she’s done suggests she’s in Viola’s league.
I’m so disappointed in NLG 🙁
“and you’re not the star of the soap, chances are you’re just not a very good actress.”
I don’t know if your resume is determined by merit when it comes to the entertainment industry. There are a whole host of factors that come into play. The least influential is usually talent (sadly)!
I do think there’s some bitterness on her end as well, and some jealousy about the accolades she knows for sure she’ll never get. She’s always been considered one of the better soap actresses and given a ton of critical accolades but never the opportunity to crossover.
This x100. She has never progressed out soaps where Viola has done theater, movies and television with success. Her comments reek of jealously, ignorance and tone deafness considering it took 67 years for an African American actress to win a best drama actress Emmy.
The Emmy’s were a sea of white faces last night, with a few sprinkles of black and even less brown. Something really needs to be done about this. Viola is right, it’s about lack of opportunity. There are many talented people out there of ALL ethnicities but they never get a shot.
And going by the pics here on CB, a sea of bleach blonde, as well! I found all the pics of blonde, white-out faces on this site today to be really hard on my eyes! Ouchy.
First she says Davis has never been discriminated against because she’s elite Hollywood. And she knows this how? Then she backpedals and says she meant all women should be celebrated. WTW? Why can’t the first African-American actress to win an Emmy for out-standing lead actress in a drama series enjoy her win and encourage other actresses of color not to give up? Noooooooooooooooo! Some dumb-a$$ irrelevant nobody has to rain on her parade by sayiing something completely ignorant and made up b/c she doesn’t know what trials and tribulations Davis has been through. Then she spends all night trying to take it back b/c she’s scared her gum-flapping might have cost her her job. How about you just keep it shut to begin with? Nobody cares what you think about the situation and you only embarrass yourself. Minor suggestion: Got a feeling, alcohol may have had something to do with this, so don’t drunk tweet during awards shows.
I haven’t watched since the 90s but I loved jax and Brenda back in the day which is not important at all.
but yeah That lady seems like a desperate tool trolling for attention. And what she said is disgusting and wrong and she should be called out. Really one should never tell anyone about their life experience and just because viola has had a great career doesn’t mean she hasn’t been discriminated against. And based on how few women of color there were there and the fact it’s 2015 and viola was the first black woman to win says there is a pretty big issue here.
Jax and Brenda were my favorite soap couple of all time, K! And I basically loved Alexis and Nancy Lee Grahn from the moment she first appeared on GH. Off screen, I admired her support of progressive and feminist causes. But she’s dead to me now.
Last night, I was horrified by her initial tweet and hoped she’d have the sense to delete it, apologize for causing any offense, and pray that everyone quickly forgot about it. Instead, she doubled down on it. Then she apologized, but shortly after that she started whining about how mean Black Twitter was when people started dragging her ass. (And it wasn’t just black folks, Nancy.) By the time she got to the tweet saying that before this happened, she “would have marched for them,” I was fucking through. She showed her true colors and it was disgusting. If your support for equality is so conditional that you withdraw it because people aren’t “nice” to you, you never truly supported equality in the first place.
What’s ironic it that earlier this year, she tweeted support for Patricia Arquette’s Oscar speech and said how great it was that Patricia used that moment to speak out for women. But after 66 years of white women winning Best Actress in a Drama, she can’t allow Viola Davis the space to acknowledge the struggle of black actresses? Really? Her self-absorption is staggering.
YESYESYES
the tweets got more and more offensive as the night wore on. I didn’t know marching for racial discrimination was conditional on people ignoring the whitesplaining tweet you just made. Its like when people pick out one bad example of a marginalized group to proof of why racism/sexism/ageism exist.
This is one of the reasons I’m so happy black twitter exists (although there was outrage from all sides last night)
@ KJ: You are 100% correct in this. You need to tweet your entire comment to Nancy Lee Grahn (in a series of tweets or something) because that was fully ON POINT.
wow. thank you for this insightful comment @KJ!
I think Nancy is a bit slow-witted and she misunderstood Samberg’s earlier joke of “racism is over”.
No one can out do Ms Patti La Belle, she’s one of my favorites divas
That stupid soap opera actress is an idiot, did she think people were going to side with her? She’s just a bitter old hag lol
Who is this person anyway? A soap actress? God why do people even care, just ignore her. She wanted attention, she was basically trolling, and got it.
Ted Nugent is an ass–he hangs out around where my grandma lives (at the local bars)…and she hates his guts. He always acts so self important to us peasants.
Tell me about it. He’s from my town in Michigan and owns A LOT of land. He’s been business savvy by investing in real estate and made a killing, but that’s where the smarts end with this one. He personifies the male egotist and he’s LOUD. When he’s around you know because he makes sure everybody within a mile range hears and sees him. I’ve been wanting this dude to get a big dose of humility some how some way because man does he need it.
You must live near my grandma……she’s close to where he hangs out. She hates his guts SO bad. I’m glad I’ve never run into him.
Ted Numnut is a repulsive moron who needs to crawl back into the depths of the underworld from which he came. I can totally see him looking down on the peasants, women of all status, and any person of color because after all – he is an ALL IMPORTANT WHITE MALE…..with no class and maybe one brain cell…maybe
Ted Nuggent love talk about how clean he is and Jimmy Hendrix should have lived a clean lifestyle like he did.
So jealous that Jimmy Hendrix is more famous dead than he is alive. He’ll never be the eternal legend he craves no matter how many times he riffs out Cat Scratch Fever. Weak!
VC
For a charity event I volunteer for. We were in talks to get Ted. The town hosting actually put up a protest about it. It worked out because he’s demands were insane. We met his price, but he wanted his pyro crew (that we were not able to permit a display of that size so close to spectators), An enormous American flag he would bring that wouldn’t fit on our massive stage rig. And “Bambi” for meal requests. We easily turned him down.
He doesn’t strike me as a kind man. The pyro routine alone was reckless to persist after we responded why that wasn’t possible..
I don’t like him.
Considering most actors will never reach Grahn’s level of stability and success, she really has no reason to complain. Silly.
Interesting tidbit
Nancy’s first Emmy win was a tie with Debbi Morgan,a black actress who played Angie on All My Children.
So she already has multiple awards and she’s still whining?
She’s in a dying genre. It’s only a matter of time and she’ll be another soap opera actress. She’s been in the business for years and watched people she worked with go on to move stardom. Robin Wright being one of them.
Hmm, has she felt resentful ever since that she had to share?
Grahn is pulling the good ol’ fashioned White Feminist (TM). She was all celebratory when Patricia Arquette pulled that thing at the Oscars, celebrating how “great” it was for women. But she slams Viola Davis for pointing out that this was a historic occasion and that more WoC should be getting leading roles?
Yeah, this is why the world probably doesn’t need more Feminism. It probably needs more Womanism instead.
this x10000000
@Sam – preach!!
This is why some WOC (myself included) have a problem with feminism because it doesn’t recognize intersectionality, unlike Womanism. Feminism still has a long way to go in achieving greater diversity and fully recognizing experiences of underrepresented groups.
There is a very clear lack of understanding of the term feminist. It means to advocate for the fair and equal treatment of women. It is so disappointing the way that certain corners of the media have demonised the word to the point where people completely miss the point.
Definition and application aren’t the same thing. Feminism has always had a race problem that it refuses to address, the internet isn’t responsible for that.
I wonder if this soap opera person is annoyed because she sees Viola a theater and movie star and feels is unfair that she is working for tv and getting awards easier? Because that is the only explanation I can think of.
It’s reasonable to try to make sense out of it, but TV competition is stiff too, there have been excellent roles written for women and Viola had to compete fair and square.
Grahn would have to think her own Emmys were obtained more easily than if she worked in film and theater, then.
I’ve watched General Hospital since 1972, and through all the years – she is my least favorite. She cannot act, is not convincing in her love scenes, flubs her lines – and whatever. Stay in your lane.
woman is an idiot. but then, so are the people giving her attention.
She should just say she was drunk or high on something when she was tweeting and check into rehab for a few weeks, than she can start over… 🙂
Lmao!
Nancy who?
#WhiteFeminism
And I need not say more on that.
thank you
Yup.
Nancy should know that in this day and age, expressing your opinion, if contrary to PC, will reap scorn and humiliation.
She’s Viola’s biographer, now?
Nancy should know that coming for a goddess like Viola, who absolutely earned that win, will reap scorn and humiliation.
Yup, expressing an opinion contrary to the public is the problem. Nailed it.
Saying a black woman in Hollywood has” never been discriminated against” is just as ignorant as Trump classifying Mexican immigrants as rapists.Both comments deserve scorn.
thank you @Colette.
If the definition of truth about the reality of what PoC and Black women in particular have been going through since this country was founded is “PC”, then we have a real problem here. So basically, it’s “PC” if we are not maintaining the status quo (i.e. maintaining white supremacist ideology in both overt and covert ways)? Well, then consider me not PC because I am through with being silenced and I stand with my sisters (those who are true sisters and not those who shame us for speaking truth about the realities of this country, this business, etc.).
Yes
I remember her from Santa Barbara. Talk about a soap opera that exploited women. Every woman character was raped or had been raped on that show. Then the would do a PSA at the end to tell woman to call the rape hotline.
I’m not even go into the Luke and Laura story line. She should just shut up and sit down. She’s was a one note actress on Santa barbara and nothing has pretty much changed. I guess she’s bitter because all she could get is guest starring roles on Murder She Wrote with the rest of her fellow soap opera brethren.
Buy the way acting outraged and sanctimonious in every role you get does not make you Meryl Steep.
Viola has been working in Hollywood for almost two decades – and most of that time she had to make due with guest spots on police procedurals or the occasional movie-of-the-week. Her recent success is long overdue and well-deserved. I can still remember her wiping the floor with Vincent D’Onofrio (who is usually the one doing the scene stealing) in a Law and Order episode – and that was more than a decade ago. I don’t believe for a second that discrimination didn’t play a part in her being on the sidelines for so long – either because of her race or her gender… or both.
I so love me some Vince. I wish Vince and his red-headed partner would come back and do the show again.
YES. I’ve never been a methodical Law & Order watcher but that particular series with lean Vincent and the redhead (clearly the abundance of details I’m providing shows how well I watched, lol) were amazing. Every episode, so sad to see that end.
I get what she meant but it was worded poorly, the did between black and ….is opportunities. That part, is true but it is also for women of Asian ethnicity and so on…women in general,especially older women, maybe if that was added to her speech. But Nancy has No clue was Viola has been through, Viola is a brilliant actress who I looove in everything she has done. A real Actor…period. congrats!!!!
I think she said “women of color.” I thought she was including all ethnicities when she talked out opportunities, or the lack thereof.
She said women of color and why does she have to add other parameters to her speech when she is telling her truth? How often do women giving speeches on sexism include racism, police brutality again Black men, homophobia, Mexican immigration hated or crimes again innocent Muslims? Time and time again because of this country’s past Slavery, Blacks are asked to not focus on issues specifically affecting them because white people will feel guilty or left out. This is about Viola speaking her truth. People uncomfortable with it can choose to acknowledge that racism is still alive or can change the channel to continue to deny it.
I gave this lady the benefit of the doubt because I heard she is a crusader for women’s right. If you read through all her tweets there is no question that she is completely out of touch with the lives of Black people or straight up racist. I was really shocked to read the things she was so happy to post in 2015. It really makes me sad when I find out someone I consider a sister in the struggle only cares about other women who share her skin tone. Many WOC are starting to see that they are second class citizens in the feminist world just like people of color in the LGBT world. I guess it’s human nature to alway want to feel superior to another group even in sub-groups.
Threads dedicated to Kate’s hair and a total miss on the Letizia bringing glamour to the States.
I’m grumpy about this.
what a weird thing to do. You can’t tell another person that they haven’t been discriminated against?! You haven’t lived their life.
I am glad that Black Twitter took Nancy to task. I couldn’t believe her follow up tweets to the first one. She just wouldn’t stop digging. And then she had the nerve to say she wanted Shonda (whose name she misspelt) to give her a job. “GIVE” her a job…as if she hires trash on her shows.
I hate her now, and I actually used to love her character in Santa Barbara.
Oh yawn! I was as happy for Viola as anybody, she is an a powerhouse actress and a role model for anybody regardless of color – but the reaction from ‘black twitter’ is just disgusting. They LIVE for any opportunity to pile on white people and instead of discussing why they felt she was wrong they just become way more offensive than Nancy ever was.
They do themselves no favors by being so obnoxious.
Maybe those poor, woebegone white people shouldn’t provide the opportunities for the piles. She said a lot of stupid crap, not just a couple of sentences, so blame her for the reaction it garnered.
Yeah just because some twitters are black doesn’t make them black twitter. Tons of white people on Twitter went in on her for her stupid comments. Patricia Arquette did too. Was she offensive?
*cringe* oh Lou why did you have to go and say that. Now I have second-hand embarrassment for you as well. *cringe*