Nia Long recently opened up about her emotions following the devestating revelation that her ex-fiance, Ime Udoka, had been in an intimate relationship with a female member of the Boston Celtics staff. And she was almost brought to tears while doing so. See her interview, plus her chit-chat with actress/daytime talk show host Drew Barrymore about Charlie’s Angels role inside…
Nia Long recently opened up about her emotions following the revelation that her ex-fiance, Ime Udoka, had been in an intimate relationship with a female member of the Boston Celtics staff.
In an emotional interview with Role Recall for Yahoo! Entertainment, the “Best Man: Final Chapters” actress spoke candidly about being heartbroken by the public affair.
“I’ve had some pretty devastating moments in my life over the last couple of months,” the 52-year-old actress said. “And I’ve had just to say, ‘It’s all right. You’ll pick yourself back up and — oh my God. I’m about to cry,” she said as she fanned her face with her hands to stop herself from crying. “‘You’ll pick yourself back up and keep moving.’”
Watch the clip below:
Nia Long’s story about meeting Chris Tucker on the way to the set of FRIDAY is too good. pic.twitter.com/uHNEgQngFw
— Kevin Polowy (@djkevlar) January 20, 2023
After meeting through mutual friends, Nia and Ime began dating in 2010 and got engaged in 2015.
The You People actress’ emotional interview comes four months after Ime was fired as the Boston Celtics’ head coach. The NBA suspended Ime for allegedly having an “intimate relationship with a female member of the franchise’s staff,” which caused the couple to split after more than a decade together.
Nia was taken aback by the affair, claiming that Ime only told her about it several days before the news became public. In December 2022, the Big Momma’s House star told The Hollywood Reporter how the scandal affected the former couple’s 11-year-old son, Kez. She said the “most heartbreaking thing about all of this was seeing my son’s face when the Boston Celtics organization decided to make a very private situation public. No one from the Celtics organization has even called to see if I’m OK, to see if my children are OK. It’s very disappointing.”
Also in the interview, Nia addressed the rumor that she turned down a role in Charlie’s Angels for a role in Big Momma’s House, starring opposite Martin Lawrence.
Nia Long says she passed up for Charlie’s Angels “because they said I looked too sophisticated and too old next to Drew Barrymore.” pic.twitter.com/k68dDv3Sxw
— Kevin Polowy (@djkevlar) January 20, 2023
“That is the biggest fattest lie,” she said. “Charlie’s Angels did not want me because they said I looked too sophisticated and too old next to Drew Barrymore… But listen, I thought Lucy Liu was great in that role. When I went back and looked at it, I was like, ‘Whoa, she’s really doing some stunts.’ I don’t know if I was quite ready for that. I don’t, you can’t do everything, and every opportunity isn’t for you. And as much as it would’ve been fun to play that character, I think Big Momma’s House was probably more fun for me.”
Watch the clip above.
While on the promo trail for her new Netflix movie You People, Nia stopped by Drew Barrymore’s daytime show to explain why she did not costar with Drew in the 2000 action movie.
Apparently, producers didn’t like her “sophisticated” eyebrows and felt she looked “too old” next to Drew, who is five years younger than her. Chile…
Drew, who produced the film with her partner, Nancy Juvonen, through their production company, Flower Films, addressed the reveal during Nia’s appearance on her talk show on Friday.
“I go and I audition and, first of all, I was so excited to meet you…and it went really well,” she recalled. “So, I go and I audition, then you go home and you wait and you hope to get the response, which is, ‘You’re going to get the job.’ I didn’t get the job. It’s OK, it happens. But the feedback was, ‘My eyebrows were too sophisticated and I looked too old next to Drew.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ It just was an odd way of saying you didn’t get the job.”
She continued, “Now that I’m older and wiser and we’ve been in this business for a long time, I think what was happening during that time is there were all these conversations about diversity, but people weren’t really pulling the trigger. I don’t think this has anything to do with you or your partner or your film company, I think this is just a result of the fear of really putting a Black woman into a film that never cast anyone Black. It was a first time for them.”
”There was this initiative to cast more Black women, have more Black women on set, but Hollywood wasn’t quite doing it,” she added. “Because I remember during that time, I actually auditioned for so many roles that weren’t written [for] Black [actors], to the point where I was exhausted. It was almost like, ‘Bring the Black girls in [and] bring the Black actors in so we can say that we did it, but we’re not going to necessarily pull the trigger.'”
”So, what I will say now is things have changed a little. I thank God for producers like you because I know you’re aware and you’re sensitive to it because you’re having the conversation,” she continued.
Drew went on to explain that when they presented themselves as producers for the film, all the pitches for the main trio were diverse, and “that was just something that felt right in our guts at the time. And, it’s bewildering to me that someone would say those things.”
“I’m 101 percent positive that it came from a studio exec that has no concept of understanding the importance of diversity, let alone what you stand for because you’ve been in this game, Drew, for a very long time,” Nia told Drew. “And I know your heart and I see your show and I know who you are. So this was never anything I took personally at all. But I’m glad we’re having the conversation because Black women and white women — women period — we need to talk, we need to stay in communication. Because at the end of the day, it’s hard for all women in this industry. I don’t care who you are.”
Watch the interview below:
Watch Nia Long star opposite Eddie Murphy, Lauren London, and more in You People, streaming now on Netflix.
Photos: Instagram/ The Drew Barrymore Show/Ash Bean
