Gabourey Sidibe confronts Raven-Symoné over past treatment on podcast
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The gist
Oscar-nominated actress Gabourey Sidibe told Raven-Symoné on her podcast that Raven treated her like she disliked her.
The exchange aired old tensions from their 2015 overlap on Fox's Empire.
Background
Gabourey Sidibe is an Oscar-nominated actress known for her breakout role in the 2009 film "Precious"; she played Becky Williams on Fox's "Empire." Raven-Symoné is a former Disney Channel star of "That's So Raven" who co-hosts the podcast "Tea Time with Raven & Miranda" with her wife, Miranda Maday. The two actresses' careers overlapped on "Empire" in 2015, when Sidibe was a recurring cast member promoted to regular and Raven-Symoné guest-starred in a couple of season 1 episodes. The conversation began during the podcast's "Hex or Hug" segment about fashion designers who refuse to dress plus-size celebrities.
How it unfolded
- Nov 5, 2026Sidibe appeared on the "Tea Time with Raven and Miranda" podcast and confronted Raven-Symoné about how she was treated in the past.
- Nov 6, 2026TMZ posted a clip of Sidibe saying Raven-Symoné "didn't like her" when they first met, and coverage reported her claim that she was told Raven-Symoné made people promise not to be friends with her.
- Nov 6, 2026Raven-Symoné offered a "my bad" for her past behavior; the trio suggested more specific details would be settled in private.
- Nov 9, 2026A February 6, 2026 Threads post by Sidibe resurfaced, in which she wrote she would want to interview people she has "beef" with to figure out where things went wrong.
Key terms
- Oscar-nominated
- Annual awards by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honoring excellence in film.
- recurring cast member
- A character who appears repeatedly across episodes of a TV series but less often than a regular.
Source: Wikipedia
Who’s saying what
- Sidibe
- Sidibe said she didn't think Raven-Symoné liked her and that Raven-Symoné "treated me like you didn't like me," and claimed she was told Raven-Symoné made some people promise not to be friends with her.
- Raven-Symoné
- Raven-Symoné denied discouraging people from befriending Sidibe, saying she simply hadn't known her well at the time, while admitting she used to have "a lot of chips on my shoulders" and recalling feeling envious when Sidibe was embraced on the scene.
- Maday
- Co-host Miranda Maday acknowledged Raven can be "shady" and "petty" but said she isn't the type to go behind someone's back and tell people not to be friends with her.
Still unverified
Sidibe's claim that Raven-Symoné instructed others not to befriend her was denied by Raven-Symoné and doubted by Miranda Maday; the podcast censored the names of those referred to.