Actress, Candice Patton Says She Wanted To Leave In Season 2 Of ‘The Flash’ Due To Being Mistre@ted
Popular actress, Candice Patton, 34, has recounted how she wanted to leave in Season 2 of “The Flash”.
Speaking on a recent episode of The Open Up Podcast, the actress revealed that she wanted to leave the series “as early as” Season 2 due to being “severely unhappy.”
According to her, she was receiving racially charged messages back then, from fans online after making her debut as Iris West in 2014.
“I remember being like, ‘I can’t do this. I’m not going to make it through. I don’t want to be here,’ ” she said.
Speaking further, Candice Patton said that as a Black woman, the role came with a lot of “responsibility”.
She stated that she experienced “backlash” from fans who “can be racist”, adding that she didn’t receive “help” from others in the workplace.
She added;
“At the time, it was kind of like, ‘Yeah, that’s how fans are, but whatever.
Even with the companies I was working with — CW, Warner Bros. — I think that was their way of handling it. I think we know better now. It’s not OK to treat your talent that way, to let them go through abuse and harassment.
But for me in 2014, there were no support systems. No one was looking out for that. It was just free range to get abused every single day.There were no social media protocols in place to protect me; they just let all that stuff sit there.”
Speaking on the changes she wants to see, Candice Patton said;
“There has to be people in positions of power who understand my experience and understand the Black experience, the Black female experience who can say, ‘OK, she needs protection.
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In the real world, we are not protected,” adding: “If I get pulled over at 2 a.m. in Jackson, Mississippi, by a white cop, do you think he gives a s— that I’m Candice Patton from The Flash? It doesn’t matter.”
“We still need protection because the world sees us in a certain way. So when I step onto set and everyone working around me is white … I’m not protected; I will never be protected. And that’s not to say that these people have bad intentions … but they have blind spots.
They have a lot of blind spots, and that can also contribute to my harm. It’s been a learning experience, I’m sure, for companies and corporations and productions.”
In the episode, Patton stated that apart from lack of protection she was not treated equally to her non-Black counterparts.
According to her, she was not initially followed by the official Flash account on Instagram
“I remember asking my publicist, I was like, ‘Do you think you could get The Flash account to follow me?Back when I cared about that s— and wanted to be included.” She said.
The actress stated that despite not feeling supported, she stayed due to contractual obligations and because she felt “a huge responsibility,”
“My fans loved this character.” She added. “It was such an iconic casting, such an iconic role, and I knew how much this meant to so many people that I felt a responsibility to stay in a space and a place that was probably very toxic for my mental health.”
