Homophobic Actress Cast as Celie in a UK Production of “The Color Purple”

SO: Actress Oluwaseyi Omooba was just cast as Celie in the upcoming UK production of the Broadway musical of The Color Purple.

Celie, of course, is one of the most iconic queer roles of the 20th century.

The problem: Oluwaseyi Omooba recently came under fire for a 2014 Facebook post in which she referred to homosexuality as “unnatural” and “wrong.”

A weeeeeeee bit of a conflict, dontyouthink?

@Seyiomooba Do you still stand by this post? Or are you happy to remain a hypocrite? Seeing as you’ve now been announced to be playing an LGBTQ character, I think you owe your LGBTQ peers an explanation. Immediately. pic.twitter.com/GK2xbzZYgy

— Aaron Lee Lambert (@aleelambert) March 15, 2019

via Queerty:

The post was shared by Hamilton actor Aaron Lee Lambert, who tweeted: “@Seyiomooba Do you still stand by this post? Or are you happy to remain a hypocrite?”

“Seeing as you’ve now been announced to be playing an LGBTQ character,” he added, “I think you owe your LGBTQ peers an explanation. Immediately.”

Curve, the theater producing The Color Purple, had THIS to say…

The views expressed in the historic social media post by a member of Curve and @BrumHippodrome’s The Color Purple cast in no way reflect those held by either of our theatres. We will be looking into the matter and will issue a full response in due course.

— Curve (@CurveLeicester) March 16, 2019

As of today, however, there has still been no response, and people are getting a little irritated…

You need to be a little bit quicker.

— 🏳️‍🌈 RobIN 🏳️‍🌈 (@robinfq) March 18, 2019

Your silence on this matter is deafening. This is not immediate action! While I appreciate this is a difficult & complex situation for you, she should be immediately released from contract. @Seyiomooba has no place playing someone from the LGBT community. None at all. #LGBT

— Craig Davidson StN 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺🏳️‍🌈 (@CraigDavidson85) March 19, 2019