When Shannon Sharpe sat down for his viral interview with author, actress, and comedian Amanda Seales in April, he didn’t expect it to cause so much controversy. However, the conversation was met with much backlash, and now Sharpe is putting his foot down.
On April 24, Amanda Seales was a guest on Shannon Sharpe’s “Club Shay Shay” podcast, where she discussed everything from her gripes with “Insecure” star Issa Rae to her autism diagnosis. During the sit-down, Seales also spoke of an instance in her childhood where she would correct her white teacher and get chastised for it.
“I had a teacher, Miss Schwank, who had who called a conference because she was talking about Aboriginal art,” Seales recalled from her childhood. “She stood in front of the class and said, ‘You know that the Aborigines are a stone-aged people,’ and I was like, ‘Ma’am, there are aboriginals alive right now like they are a part of civilization. Like what are you talking about?'”
Seales went on to say that she would often correct her teachers and was not “easily appeased” just because they were authoritative figures. She believed that racism factored into why the teachers were offended by her critique and would contact her parents. Sharpe questioned Seales’ line of thinking, asking her if she felt the teachers would feel the same if a white student corrected them.
“I guess my question to you is, why do you even feel compelled at this juncture in this interview to try to defend her?” Seales hit back.
The conversation caused a stir on social media, with individuals defending both sides of the argument.
“She was not randomly correcting the teacher. She was responding to a racist and dehumanizing lesson given by the teacher,” one X user responded.
Another chimed in, “As a black man, I agree with Shannon because the way I was raised, we didn’t correct adults or none of that. Also, it was stay in a child’s place because imagine you were a teacher for a fourth grade class, and every time you said something, that was that one kid who always was doing it.”
When Seales recalled a time another child called her the N-word, Sharpe gave a relatively short response by effectively chalking it up to the fact that “they’re kids.” Viewers pointed out that Sharpe’s reply was even more noticeable, considering his willingness to go more in-depth on other topics throughout the conversation. Seales said she was the only black girl on the set of a production at the time she was called the N-word.
In an upcoming interview, set to premiere on June 28, the three-time Super Bowl winner joined Cam Newton’s “Funky Friday” podcast to comment on the conversation and set the record straight about how he conducted the interview.
During the episode, the “Club Shay Shay” host asserted that he always tries to let guests of “Club Shay Shay” speak freely, and he does not want to constantly interrupt them.
“I want credibility. I want people to be able to share their story without me interrupting,” Sharpe told Newton while calling back to his approach to the viral January 2024 Katt Williams interview. “I think, for the most part, that people tuned in to watch my pod because they want to hear what the guests have to say. I let the guest speak.”
Sharpe then spoke on his controversial interview and how he felt the public nitpicks his interviewing style.
“People say, ‘Well, you pushed back on Amanda Seales,’” Sharpe began. “All I said was, ‘Amanda, did you think being a child correcting a teacher in front of the students … could it have been something else other than racism?’ that’s all, and people lost it, ‘Well, you didn’t push back!'”
Sharpe then compared his interview with actress and comedian Mo’Nique and how she responded to his feedback. “Mo’Nique said Oprah asked her to go read for a role. She went and read for the role, Oprah ended up getting the role. I said, ‘Mo, did you ever think they were looking for a heavy-set Black woman, and it wasn’t because the industry was against you?’ She said, ‘My brother, I didn’t think about it like that.'”
Sharpe continued, “But see, they don’t mention that because that wouldn’t … [they say] I’ve got to try to do something to try to quail this momentum that Shannon, this wave that Shannon is riding, so any way I can try to undercut him or to make him look like he…’ I’m not a journalist. I never told anybody I was a journalist. I said I’m a conversationalist, but what people are upset about is that, for some reason, people come to me, and I don’t look at them with judgy eyes. I have no pre-determined notion or preconceived notions, and they open up to me. That’s what they’re upset about.”
Sharpe went on to say that when his guests are on other podcasts, those shows don’t get the views that “Club Shay Shay” has gotten.
Following her “Club Shay Shay” interview, Seales said she believed Sharpe was “interrogating” her about her diagnosis in an Instagram post on April 26, and noting that she felt the former NFL star had “absolutely zero love” for her as he “pressured” her into answering questions.
“I don’t have anything bad to say about Amanda. I thought we had a great time,” Sharpe told Newton. “I’m sorry that once we aired what we aired, I mean, she was there for three hours. I’m sorry that she didn’t feel like she got an opportunity to say what she wanted to get off her chest. I probably was one of the few that gave her an opportunity to share her story, to say her side.”
