During an interview with Van Lathan for the “Red Pill Podcast” (Feb. 21), actor Taye Diggs called out the black women that reacted negatively to his marriage to Idina Menzel, a white actress.
Although the two have since divorced, Diggs says he reportedly resents black women for their backlash to his dating preference, Essence reports. “I don’t wanna say I suppress it but I just watch it. And when it happens to you personally, even though you understand the logic, there’s trauma there,” he said. “I don’t know if I could ever mess with a white girl now. And I don’t like that. That goes against who I am as a person.”
During a 2015 press tour for his children’s book “Mixed Me,” Diggs admitted he was comfortable with his mixed-race son not having an identity rather than to chose one race over the other. Currently, the Brown Sugar star is in a relationship with Amanza Smith Brown, a biracial actress/model, and says there was a parade when his family found out he was dating someone half-black. Although the actor says he is no longer in a space to care, he offered advice on how to move forward.
“In order for us to kind of move forward is—and it’s easy for me to say this because I’m a black male—but the only way, whether this is just in life or as a black woman or man or whoever you are, to move forward is to, regardless of what the outside thinks of you, is to learn how to love yourself, regardless,” he said.
Diggs’ comments on dating start around the 22:40 mark.