Tituss Burgess isn’t backing down from his comments towards Andy Cohen.
Speaking with Wendy Williams, the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt star stayed true to his shade towards Cohen after the two had a brief standoff during his appearance on Cohen’s late-night show, Watch What Happens Live.
“I will not tolerate the dismantling of anyone’s legacy, especially not my own,” he told Williams Tuesday (July 30) about his incident with Cohen on Sunday (July 28). “Who we were speaking about has done a beautiful job being the comedic giant that he is. He has a wonderful movie coming out and I was not going to participate in talking about that.”
Burgess was a guest on WWHL alongside Laverne Cox. The actor-singer appeared on Cohen’s show to promote his new EP Saint Burgess and talk about his upcoming film Dolemite Is My Name which also stars Eddie Murphy and Wesley Snipes.
Cohen questioned Burgess about working with Murphy. “I was just wondering if you got close at all because he was very problematic for the gays at one point,” Cohen said in reference to Murphy’s Delirious standup special from the 80s (Murphy apologized for his homophobic jokes in 1996). Burgess, who was bothered by the question replied by speaking about how he enjoyed working with Murphy on set.
“Oh, I see. He wasn’t problematic for Tituss,” Burgess responded. “We had a wonderful time. We talked about Dreamgirls. He should’ve won the Oscar, I believe.” Burgess then made a comment to someone off-camera about the question with Cohen asking, “What are you saying, Tituss?” “Keep going, girl,” Burgess replied. “Do your show.”
“I think that people misinterpret who they see on the screen sometimes and begin to have a relationship towards you based on misinformation,” Burgess told Williams about the ordeal. After the show, Burgess called Cohen a “messy queen” for attempting to get Burgess to seemingly turn on his co-star.
“If only time were taken to know who I am and not assuming that I am the character I play on tv, he would know how to conduct a proper interview with at all,” he said in an Instagram comment. “I received 4 Emmy nominations for acting! NOT for being my self. He was lucky I had my wits and Christian values THAT day. Always keep it classy. Being friends with other talented celebrities doesn’t make you talented it makes you friends with other famous celebrities! He should rip a page from Anderson Cooper and learn how to do his job.”
He also explained to his fans why he was offended by the question about Murphy’s past jokes.
Watch his interview with Wendy below.