Director Lee Daniels recently defended statements he made in an EBONY magazine interview about the #OscarsSoWhite controversy and his claim that his new show “Star” will help the nation heal.
Daniels told TMZ Saturday, Jan. 7, that his comments were misconstrued and that the backlash aimed at him was not warranted. The “Empire” creator wanted his critics to know that he has always created work for nonwhite people and their criticism means nothing to him.
“I have from the very beginning of my career been responsible for … going out of my way to look for minorities to work, behind the camera and in front of the camera,” he tells the interviewer. “My body of work speaks for itself. So, for those haters that are gon’ hate — f–k ’em.”
Last week, Daniels made comments insisting that the lead white character from his new show would heal the racial divide, a divide he attributes to Trump’s rise.
“We are in a very dangerous state right now in our country and I wanted white people to feel good about being white because right now, there’s a lot of hatred going on,” Daniels told EBONY last Wednesday, Jan. 4.
However, when the TMZ reporter asked him about those comments, Daniels denied making them. Instead, Daniels reminded the interviewer that he tried with all of his might and with his TV shows to prevent Trump from winning the presidency.
“When I did my show ‘Star,’ it was before Donald Trump was in office,” he says. “I did everything that I could so that man wouldn’t be in office. I predicted that we would be in that civil war. And that was the purpose of creating ‘Star’… Right now, we are in a dark time.”
