Amanda Seales Announces She’s Leaving The Real

After 6 months on the daytime talk show, The Real, 38-year-old comedian and activist, Amanda Seales announced that she is not renewing her contract on the show as the fifth co-host.

During an Instagram Live, Seales said that she was unable to express herself as black woman on the show and “speak to my people the way they need to be spoken to.”

She went on to say, “I’m not at a space where, as a full black woman, I can have my voice and my co-workers also have their voices, and where the people at the top are not respecting the necessity for black voices to be at the top, too.”

Following Seales’ announcement of her departure from the show, fans speculated that there may be underlying issues with Seales and the other co-hosts, Loni Love, Jeannie Mai, Tamera Mowry-Housley and Adrienne Houghton. She quickly struck down false rumors of any issues with her co-hosts.

“Do not try to create false dissention between me and the co-hosts of The Real,” she said. “Y’all so f***ing corny. There is a whole pandemic and an uprising going on, and you still can’t find s**t else to do but try and create some kind of conflict that doesn’t exist?” She continued, “I did not unfollow Loni Love. I haven’t unfollowed anybody. What y’all don’t understand is grown women do grown women business. That’s what y’all don’t understand, and what I gotta do with my business ain’t got nothing to do with them sisters.”

Seales served as a guest panelist several times on the show in 2019, before officially joining and replacing original panelist Tamar Braxton this year.

Communities of black men and women have become more vocal and are speaking out against racial inequality after the wrongful murder of 46-year-old George Floyd at the hands of white Minneapolis, Minnesota officer, Derek Chauvin, who held his knee to Floyd’s neck and killed him. It’s no surprise that young black fans were the first to praise Seales’ decision to leave a show that was essentially silencing her true voice.

“I’m glad Amanda Seales quit The Real,” one user tweeted. “She was too real for The Real. Half of the time they don’t even be real on the s**t they be talking about.”

Another user tweeted, “Amanda Seales leaving The Real was a key movement. She deserves a better platform. She’s such an educated, well-articulated woman. The show did not deserve her.”