I May Destroy You creator Michaela Coel admits she has PTSD following her experience of racism at school.
Speaking to The Telegraph’s Arts supplement, she spoke about having a ‘s***ty time’ as a black student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2009.
An independent review into discrimination experienced by students in 2020, found evidence of a racist culture in which multiple black students were called the N-word and ‘suppressed’ by white tutors.
Being told she has a page dedicated to her on the college’s website, she said: ‘I’m not going to lie to you, I’ve got so much PTSD from my time in drama school I’ve never looked back.’
When asked if she would like the college to remove her image from the website, she said the answer is not an easy one.
Honest: Michaela Coel has admitted she has PTSD following her experience of racism at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, which she attended in 2009, (pictured at the BFI on Sunday)
Tough time: When asked if she would like the college to remove her image from the website, she said the answer is not an easy one
‘Its very difficult’, she said. ‘When you put somebody’s picture on the school’s thing, it makes people want to go there… and I don’t really want to make people do anything or stop people [from] doing anything.
‘Sh**ty as my time there was, I love the person I am today and I am a collection of every experience I’ve had, both fortunate and unfortunate. So do I regret going there? That’s a complex question.’
MailOnline has contacted a spokesperson for the Guildhall School of Music and Drama for comment.
It’s four years since I May Destroy You was released. It’s a British television limited series set in London about Arabella, [Coel], a young writer in the public eye who seeks to rebuild her life after being raped.
Michaela, 36, is now set to star in the Amazon reboot of Mr And Mrs Smith alongside Donald Glover and Maya Erskine.
She famously turned down an offer of £750,000 from Netflix for I May Destroy You, because the company wouldn’t give her a percentage of the copyright.
The actress has now reportedly raked in £3million since starring in the critically-acclaimed drama.
She said that she doesn’t know if they have asked to work with her again and notes that she loves the team who she works with now.
Plan: The actress and writer turned down a £750,000 offer from Netflix for the show because it meant giving up the copyright, but has since earned £3m from the show
Wow! Michaela took home BAFTA gongs for Leading Actress and Mini-series for the series at the ceremony at the Television Centre in June 2021
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