Here’s Everything You Need to Know About Why Gabrielle Union Left ‘America’s Got Talent’

By James Sainte-Claire December 3, 2019

If you’ve never seen America’s Got Talent, just imagine a high school talent show only with more close-up magic and your shitty kid isn’t competing in it so you don’t have to be there. Turns out there’s also more racism; or maybe less if you go to high school in South Bend, Indiana. But things were bad enough that Gabrielle Union left the show.

Deadline reported Monday that Union was meeting with NBC to discuss the “toxicity” that surrounded the production.

“Gabrielle believes there is a toxicity that has become normalized at Talent,” an insider told Deadline on Monday. “She wants to help fix that, because she loved a lot of her time on the show last season, even with the issues with Simon and what have you,” the source added. “But she could never go back, even if they did a [180] and asked her to for another season — no.”

After that, things got interesting. In light of this, reports from last week saying Union was fired because her hair was “too black,” like this one from The Hill, started getting more attention.

Variety reported that multiple sources said Union, who was a judge during the 14th season, received constant feedback about her appearance on the NBC show. Four sources told the magazine that Union was frequently told that her hairstyles on the show were “too black.”

However, another source pushed back against the claim, Variety reported, and said Union received critiques about her hair only for continuity purposes during the filming of the show.

I don’t know who to believe here, but racism sounds more likely than an NBC show caring about continuity.

Speaking of racism, there were also reports Jay Leno told a lazy joke that was racist towards Asians that was cut from the program. The joke involved a painting of Simon Cowell surrounded by dogs, which Leno compared to the food served at a Korean restaurant. That is very, very believable, if there’s one thing Jay Leno loves it’s lazy jokes. It’s a damn shame, Leno used to be so funny in the 80s.

Union reportedly wanted the incident reported to HR, but NBC took no action.

Sharon Osborne mentioned the drama on The Talk, saying she left because of NBC, not the America’s Got Talent staff. That was seven years ago, though, so there was plenty of time for the culture to change.

Finally, Page Six reported Terry Crews was getting some heat on social media for not being outspoken enough in Union’s defense but I don’t think that’s entirely fair. Crews had some kind words for her and we don’t know all the circumstances here or how Terry has been treated. He doesn’t even have any hair so I’m sure no one gave him a hard time about it.

While that’s all we know at the moment, it’s possible there’s more to the story coming after Union meets with NBC.