*Actress Octavia Spencer is widely regarded as one of the kindest people in Hollywood. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t keep it a buck when she needs to. Recently, during an appearance on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Spencer had some things to say about Hollywood and racism that raised a few eyebrows when asked about her home state of Alabama.
“It’s a beautiful place and beautiful people. You know, I love being from there,” she gushed.
“But it’s like, it’s heavy, man. Right?” Host Marc Maron replied.
“I think everywhere is heavy. Every — everywhere has its history. You know what I mean? It’s — I think everywhere has problems, you know,” Spencer said, alluding the state’s tumultuous past of slavery and racism.
“But that’s why it’s on the brain,” Maron replied.
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“Well, what’s beautiful for me is, that stuff preceded me. You know, I was a child of the seventies… You know, as you grow older and the things that you can remember. That wasn’t a part of my history. I learned about it. It’s not everything — anything that I experienced,” Spencer said.
“Did it hang over the family in any way?” Maron asked.
“My mother definitely, you know, taught us about the world and the realities, the harsh realities of the world and history. But growing up in Alabama, I’m going to be honest, I felt more racism when I first moved here than I ever, ever had in Alabama,” Spencer said.
She said her belief that “California is gonna be this free and liberal thinking place,” was much different than what she first experienced.
“One of the first things that you do when you move to — or at least that I did. You want to go to those historical places? You want to go to Rodeo Drive. You wanna go to Hollywood Boulevard. You know, the wax museum, all of those landmark places,” Spencer explained.
“I remember going into a shop and being followed, like, at first, I didn’t even — I was just like so excited, like just walking around, and then I realized that I was being followed,” she added.
“But I guess it really is — there is a culture of profound racism in Los Angeles,” Maron said.
Spencer went on to say that she has not experienced anything like that again, but that it was “glaringly obvious.”
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