Michaela Coel, the creator and star of the groundbreaking BBC series I May Destroy You, has said she has post-traumatic stress disorder after experiencing racism at drama school.
Coel, 36, has previously spoken extensively about the prejudice she experienced as a Black student at London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2009, but this is the first time she has opened up about having PTSD.
Speaking to The Telegraph, 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. I genuinely find that is a source of DON’T GO BACK for me.”
Asked whether she wants the school to remove a page that uses her as an example of a successful graduate from its website, she said: “It’s very difficult. 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.
“S***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.”
After the Black Lives Matter movement gained traction in 2020, Guildhall commissioned an independent review into discrimination experienced by students on its acting course.
The review found that Black students at Guildhall were called the N-word and were “suppressed” by white tutors.
Speaking to The Independent in 2020, Coel’s fellow Guildhall student Paapa Essiedu recalled an incident when a teacher launched a racial slur at him while he and Coel were in a lesson.
“We were all playing prisoners and she was the officer,” he said of the tutor. “She shouted the N-word and, as the only two Black people in the group, me and Michaela looked at each other in horror. It was under the guise of, ‘Oh, it’s an improvisation, I was in character.’
“But she wasn’t even in the play, you know, so... That school was definitely not a safe place for Black and brown people.”
Paapa Essiedu and Michaela Coel— (Shutterstock)
In 2022, Guildhall formally apologised, with a spokesperson saying: “Guildhall School apologises unreservedly for the racism experienced by Paapa Essiedu, Michaela Coel and other alumni whilst they were studying at the school. The experiences he shares were appalling and unacceptable.
“We have since undertaken a sustained programme of action to address and dismantle longstanding systemic racism within the acting programme, including commissioning an external report into historic racism and a comprehensive and ongoing process of staff training and reflection.”
