ET spoke with the 'Insecure' star at Rihanna's Diamond Ball in NYC on Thursday.
To be clear, Issa Rae never said Lawrence wasn't coming back to Insecure.
Sunday's episode saw the return of Issa's ex-boyfriend, which had many fans freaking out after it was assumed that Jay Ellis' character was not in the third season.
"So glad we got people," Rae told ET's Nischelle Turner at Rihanna's 4th Annual Diamond Ball in NYC on Thursday. "I was sure that the secret was going to be out. We were very worried about the fact that people were going to know [he was in season three]. And then people were surprised, and that’s the best feeling ever."
Rae, however, clarified that she never said Lawrence was no longer part of the series.
"I didn’t! That was the advantage of it. Every time I did an interview people were like, ‘I heard Lawrence isn’t coming back.' So I was like, if this is being served to us, let's use it," she expressed. "But I never said, myself, you never heard it out of my lips, 'Lawrence isn’t coming back this season.' Any outlet you look at, [they] asked me the question and I was like, if that’s what they think [I'll let them go with it]. It was like a blessing. People just took the news and ran with it. And we loved it."
Meanwhile, Rae had a part in Rihanna's annual gala, serving as host of the evening.
"First of all when Rihanna asks you to do something, you do it. So rumors or not, I’m here," she said, referencing speculation that she's working on a movie with RiRi. Last year, a photo of Rihanna and Lupita Nyong'o sitting together at Paris Fashion Week in 2014 went viral when a fan on Tumblr wrote that they looked like "they're in a heist movie." Fans soon began to call for the film to be made, with reports then circulating that Netflix had a movie in the works with Ava DuVernay directing and Rae writing the script.
"I’m ready to keep writing. I would love to write for her," Rae confessed. "I’m ready to work and I’m about to take my little writing vacation after this week. I’m hyped! After the Emmys, I’m, like, almost going to disappear."
"I’m going to go to Europe, maybe South America," she added. "I just came from South Africa. And then, I just [want to] write because I haven’t had a chance to sit down and work on new projects, work on the projects that I owe. So I’m just excited to be able to create new stuff."
So whether a collaboration with Rihanna is part of "projects she owes" or "new stuff" she's planning on creating, looks like we'll just have to wait and see.
ET previously spoke with both Rihanna and Nyong’o about the rumored project. The "Umbrella" singer played it coy when asked in May, saying, “Well, you never know. I mean, we’ll just have to wait and see.”
Meanwhile, Nyong’o told ET in July, “You know what’s really cool, is that people spoke up about the kind of movie they want to see and this is a great example.”
See more in the video below.
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