The Hollywood Reporter (Weekly)
Niecy Nash-Betts on the Hike With Oprah That Changed Her Life
The GLAAD Awards honoree also talks Ryan Murphy’s next Grotesquerie.
Niecy Nash-Betts will take the GLAAD Media Awards stage in Los Angeles on March 14, bringing the Emmy Award-winning actress back into the organization’s fold after she hosted the show in 2021. At the time, the veteran star of such shows as Reno 911! and Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story was fresh from revealing to the world that she’d married musician Jessica Betts, and since then, Nash-Betts has, in her words, lived her life out, proud and with absolutely no shame. The couple was featured on the cover of Essence — a first in the magazine’s 50-year history — and played lovers on broadcast television courtesy of
Nash-Betts’ series The
Rookie: Feds. Now, the actress will receive the
Stephen F. Kolzak Award for helping raise the visibility of LGBTQ people and issues. THR caught up with the 54-year-old over Zoom to discuss falling in love, winning an Emmy and sharing the stage with fellow GLAAD honoree (and friend) Oprah Winfrey.
When GLAAD offered you this award, how did that feel and why did you say yes?
I was like, “Who, me?” I don’t live my life in a way that says: If I do this, people will acknowledge me or I will receive accolades. I just live. I choose myself every day. I trust my gift and, in those spaces, and places, the accolades, the honor, the awards come. Every time my head is about to pop off, I’m like, “Somebody wants to honor me? For what? Being myself and living my life out loud?” I’ll take it every time.
Do you remember the first LGBTQ person you saw in pop culture?
I think it was on an episode of Maude, which was like a thousand years ago, and I remember hearing my parents talk about it. Everybody was kind of clutching their pearls. It’s interesting to think about it now because there’s a moniker in the Black community, being called “auntie.” As an auntie who had always been in opposite-sex relationships, people already had an affinity toward me. Then to fall in love with a samesex partner — I distinctly remember about 3,000 people unfollowing me and about 30,000 started following me. That says to me that people felt seen. We have so many problems in the world, love shouldn’t be one of ’em.
Where do you stand on the debate in Hollywood of who should be allowed to play what roles?
To be honest with you, I’m an artist first. Where I lay my head has nothing to do with my art. I have friends who are gay/queer men who play heterosexual men. Do you say, “Oh no, you should only get straight men to play straight men”? No. But somehow when it comes to the reverse, it becomes a conversation, like, “Only queer people should play queer people.” Art is art and let the art go forth and speak for itself and let the art do what the art will do.
How has your life changed since you won the Emmy?
For me, that night solidified for my peers that I’m not just a onetrick pony. I can make you laugh, I can make you cry, and I got the hardware to prove it.
At the awards, you’ll share a stage with fellow honoree Oprah Winfrey — what does she mean to you?
As far as I’m concerned, there’s God, then Oprah, and then the Obamas. We’ve fellowshipped many times, but my favorite time has to be going to her property in Maui. We went on a two-hour hike together. It was just the two of us, and it changed my life forever. I remember having the opportunity recently to tell her how much that time together charted a different course for my life and put me in a space and a place that I will forever be grateful for.
You set the internet on fire on Feb. 23, when the Grotesquerie teaser dropped on social media, marking a reunion with Ryan Murphy. What can you say about this new horror entry?
What I can say is that I’ve never played this character before. I can say that Ryan Murphy is a genius. I can say that Ryan Murphy will forever have me at hello. This series is going to be so delicious to fans of Ryan and fans of mine. I would coin it as a satiating darkness that you have to bear witness to.