She's 'Black, fabulous and on TV.' Niecy Nash-Betts is living her full self
The last time Niecy Nash-Betts and I spoke, she was just Niecy Nash, and sitting here with her in a corner booth on the covered patio at Porta Via in Calabasas — her favorite spot, her favorite table — I'm wondering if she's using her hyphenated name professionally, the one she took when she married singer-actor Jessica Betts in 2020.
"Like ... when they announce ..." I stop myself. We're having lunch the week before Emmy nominations and I don't finish the thought, knowing actors can be superstitious about putting something out into the world before it happens.
Nash-Betts fixes me with a stare. "No. Say what you were about to say." So I say it, asking if, should they announce her as an Emmy nominee for her moving portrayal of Glenda Cleveland on the Netflix limited series "Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story," if it'd be Niecy Nash or Niecy Nash-Betts.
"My prayer is that they say Niecy Nash-Betts," she replies. (They did.)
She isn't finished. She's never finished.
"How can someone who spoke her whole life and had it manifest be superstitious?" Nash-Betts, 53, it.' It doesn't say 'He hoped' or 'He imagined' or 'He dreamed.' He it. And that's what I'm gonna say. And that's that."
