We don’t really talk too much about Octavia Spencer around these parts, likely because she’s one of the few actors that stay out of the tabloids. She does have a reputation as being a bit of an asshole, however, and that reputation just got a whole lot worse. While doing a signing for her latest book, Randi Rhodes Ninja Detective — The Sweetest Heist in History, Octavia was apparently a “nasty bitch” to those who came out and basically pissed everyone off.
The initial reports came from the Daily Mail, but they did circulate pretty widely, and given her previous reputation, I can see this being true. I’ll summarize what people were saying happened:
- There was a Q&A session, but Octavia was bored as shit, short with her answers and even openly rolled her eyes at some of the questions (despite the fact that the audience was largely children).
- While she was scheduled to sign from 7-9pm, she complained about her feet hurting (while sitting down…) and being given a tiny glass of water, so she took a lengthy ass bathroom break (think 20+ mins)
- Kids and parents were not allowed to touch Octavia, get a picture with her or make small talk. She didn’t even ask their names – instead, an assistant wrote names of people in line on a post-it and Octavia signed it and slid it across the table.
- A guy who was a big fan showed up with an 8×10″ he’d gotten just for that day but Octavia refused to sign it even though he promised not to post it on social media and explained how much he loved her work.
- Lots of people demanded refunds over her behaviour.
Wow, she sounds like a barrel of laughs, eh? As for her response to the criticism, this is all she had to say:
Gotta laugh when ppl would acutally believe that you were rude to a child… at YOUR CHILDREN'S BOOK SIGNING.
— octavia spencer (@octaviaspencer) April 6, 2015
Yikes. You keep laughing, Octavia – the rest of us are cringing.