In the first interview since her wedding, Rae opened up about her marriage and the ending of her beloved TV series, 'Insecure.'
Issa Rae is getting real about all things Insecure and her private wedding to Louis Diame. In her first interview since tying the knot, Rae talked to Tamron Hall about why she decided to publicly release her wedding photos on Instagram, and how she feels now that Insecure is coming to an end after five seasons.
"You know, honestly, I was supposed to do this in 2020. And then, you know, things were different at that time," Rae told the Tamron Hall host of the intimate ceremony. "And I worked with Vera Wang, who were really great, and they wanted to post the photo and at the time, I was like, 'OK, yeah, no problem.' And then later, you know, I was like, 'Oh, they're gonna post the photo before me.' Let me tell it my way, in the best way I know how and that's the only reason that I let it go...I wanted to release the photo my way first without having them release it."
Rae said the wedding is something she'll cherish for the rest of her life and expressed her gratitude for those who came out to celebrate her and Diame's love.
"It was just a beautiful experience," she gushed. "People tell you that it goes by fast, and they're right. But my thing was, it was a party. At the end of the day, it was just a big party. And it was a lot of fun. And I'm really blessed, I feel so blessed to be surrounded by people who took the time out to just come and celebrate and that's something that I'll cherish for the rest of my life."
While Rae just opened up a new chapter in entering into married life, she's closing a very big one, with choosing to end her wildly popular HBO series after five seasons.
"I knew from season 1 that I wanted to end this show. Prentice [Penny] and I talked about it from jump, five seasons to tell a concise story without dragging it out felt right to me just on a creative level and knowing where I wanted to take these characters. It felt like enough time," she explained. "And then also just like socially, it's a lot. I'm very conscious of people giving their time to the show and five years is a lot of time, and six years for some of us."
She continued, "And you know, from the writers to the crew to the actors, I knew, I'm like, 'We're gonna get tired of each other after maybe four years, five years. So, let's cut it short while we still love each other.' And we do, we love each other so much."
While Rae shares that she faced pressure to incorporate white characters into the show, having it evolve into a solely Black show told from a Black perspective, is what she said had made the show "so refreshing."
"People were like, 'You should put a white character there.' I was like, 'What?' And then, you know, white people started watching and we got on NPR and things like that. And I think as Black creators, we are advised sometimes to give viewers, mainstream viewers, a way in via white characters," she shared. "And you know, with Insecure, it was set in a white nonprofit world, like she was the only one. But I think what was refreshing is over time, as we told this story, we got to you know, and once she quit, we got to just be a solely Black show, with a Black lens, with Black characters, and that felt so refreshing.”
Unlike other beloved series, Rae says Insecure is unlikely to get the movie treatment.
"I always say if you see an Insecure movie, it means I'm down bad. It means I’m not doing well in life. I don't want to do a movie...You know, it's a finite story. And I just don't want to see an Insecure movie unless I'm doing badly."
Season 5 of Insecure airs Oct. 24 on HBO.
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