Access Blogs
Staff Blog: Isaiah Opens Up
by Jamal Munnerlyn
Well, it seems Isaiah Washington already knew he was going to need some serious damage control on the night of The Golden Globes. I was with Isaiah the morning after the Golden Globe hoopla. We met at the he NAACP Theatre Awards Nominations where he told me, face-to-face, his side of the story after sleeping on the big controversy.
Just like he told Billy and Nancy, he insisted to me that he " would never do something so vile as to call someone that." He also said that he thought by confronting the press and denying the October incident it would put an end to it. As proof that he never dropped the new “F” bomb, he offered that there was a lengthy investigation by ABC/Disney that would have led to him being fired if he, indeed, was in the wrong.
He went on to play for me a voice message he received from someone he identified as First Lady Laura Bush congratulating him and the cast for winning The Golden Globe. I've never been fortunate enough to meet the First Lady, but it did sound like her.
Once his now former publicist stepped away, he began to talk about a "certain celebrity" who was once embraced by the black community, then dissed because of how he handled a super wardrobe malfunction, only to be embraced again because he brought sexy back. Isaiah said he reached out to this once embattled celebrity's publicist.
The rest of our seemingly candid conversation was about his efforts to help the people of Sierra Leone; which he appeared even more passionate about than his “F-word” denial.
I bet Isaiah would've preferred to draw this kind of media attention to the hard work he's doing in Africa.
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