Issa Rae and Lauren London are on good terms now, but their professional relationship got off to a bit of a rocky start after the “Insecure” creator unintentionally offended the actress to prove what she thought was a complimentary point.
The television and film producer reflected on how an anecdotal story she told in interviews and detailed in her 2015 memoir “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl” about her early days of trying to shop her web series of the same name (which would eventually become “Insecure”) around to networks made a negative first impression on the “ATL” actress. “One of my biggest regrets, naming her,” she told Vanity Fair. “She took offense to that.”
Although telling the story hurt London’s feelings when she caught wind of it, the end result, Rae found, was a lesson for her that that has helped her grow creatively. She and London ended up at Diddy’s birthday party in 2018, and with the encouragement of London’s then-partner, late rap artist Nipsey Hussle, the two had a conversation to clear the air.
“He was like, ‘You should just talk to her. Let me set it up,’ ” she said. “It actually sparked an amazing two-hour conversation. We had so much in common. She was like, ‘People don’t understand, I’m an awkward Black girl.’ In the same way that I was upset about the limited portrayal of Black women, she was like, ‘People do the same thing to me.’ I completely get that.”
Since the eye-opening conversation, Rae has committed herself to broadening the scope of Black women characters even further as her career continues to explode. The writer/actor/producer already has a variety of additional projects lined up as she prepares to close out the “Insecure” chapter of her life, including comedy series “Rap S**t”, docuseries “Sweet Life,” inspired by the BET series “Baldwin Hills,” a “Nice White Parents” adaptation, and a film she is producing, writing and starring in, “Perfect Strangers,” which is based on the Italian dramedy “Perfutti Sconosciuti.”
